Redcliffe Partners Partners Denys Medvediev and Yuriy Terentyev talk about competition in Ukraine in 2025.
CEELM: Do you expect the competition authority to be more or less active in 2025 compared to 2024? Why?
Terentyev: Since the full renewal of its operations in June 2022, the AMCU has been striving to reach the same capacity level as it was before Russia’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine. We observed some capacity constraints faced by the AMCU in 2022-2023, but things improved in 2024. Currently, the review of filings within multi-jurisdictional projects goes smoother and within a more predictable time frame.
In 2022-2023, many law firms faced a spike in rejections of merger filings, even those believed to be “non-problematic.” Such actions resulted from the AMCU’s inability to effectively handle the incoming workload as a consequence of a shortage of personnel. Meanwhile, the rate of filings in our practice accepted without initial rejection increased significantly in 2024, the same as the number of filings that fell under the fast-track procedure. We optimistically expect that the AMCU intends to keep positive dynamics in 2025.
CEELM: What is in the legislative pipeline that will have the most impact on competition in Ukraine?
Medvediev: The general trend is the further approximation of the Ukrainian competition legislation with the EC’s acquis communautaire. In 2023-2024, the AMCU introduced a settlement procedure for cartels and abuse of dominance cases, improved its leniency policy, set up clear deadlines for investigations, enhanced the merger control procedure, and kept working on further development of state aid rules.
Among next steps, the AMCU intends to abolish the procedure for obtaining approvals for concerted practices, establish clear rules for the application of structural remedies, and introduce periodic penalty payments for continuing and future violations. Besides, the AMCU is now elaborating on the further introduction of a concept of abuse of superior bargaining position and strengthening the parties’ procedural rights within investigations.
CEELM: What trends do you expect to impact competition practices across Ukraine the most in 2025?
Terentyev: Even though the AMCU does a lot to ramp up its operations, it still has to reckon with its limited resources and allocate them as efficiently as possible. Ex officio investigations and market studies remain rare. Traditionally, there is intense enforcement around bid rigging. Last year, we also saw the first leniency case under the new procedure. We see a renewed attention to pharmaceutical markets. Having in mind strong statements at the top political level on the allegedly excessive price increases and limitation of competition in such markets, we anticipate further enforcement actions. The probability of elections in Ukraine may traditionally spur the AMCU’s attention to other socially sensitive topics like fuel and energy prices and utility tariffs.
We also see a growing interest in digital markets. The AMCU has investigated the unilateral conduct of BlaBlaCar, an operator of an online platform for carpooling services. The AMCU established that BlaBlaCar imposed service fees on passengers without sufficient economic justification and applied inconsistent refund policies when drivers canceled rides. The investigation ended with recommendations for BlaBlaCar to introduce a transparent fee methodology and non-discriminatory refund policy. The AMCU’s arguments in the case look rather controversial (apparently due to a lack of the AMCU’s expertise on digital markets and insufficient legal framework for digital platforms in Ukraine, meaning the AMCU had to apply conventional rules, not perfectly suited for digital markets).
The AMCU is also refining its approach to unfair competition cases to focus on those with clearer effects on competition. It tends to reject claims if the negative effect on competition is minor, even if the misleading character of advertising is obvious. Besides, the AMCU’s activity in detecting unfair competition violations has an industry focus that changes from time to time – currently, it is pharmaceuticals and related products. 2024 ended with several fines imposed for spreading misleading information on the alleged therapeutic effect of dietary supplements and cosmetics. Foods and beverages are also under the AMCU’s spotlight. We expect that in 2025, all these sectors will remain interesting for the AMCU, but the focus may shift slightly to other sectors.
CEELM: What would you identify as the main challenges faced by companies in terms of competition matters at the moment in Ukraine in 2025?
Medvediev: Among numerous challenges, we would like to focus on those related to merger control. Ukrainian thresholds are still low and catch deals with no or limited local nexus. Applicants may still face excessively formalistic treatment of certain concentration aspects beyond its substantive analysis (e.g., regarding confirmation of financing). Also, the AMCU’s lack of expertise in certain areas, such as digital markets, may increase scrutiny of a filing. And last but not least, the amount of fines for failure to notify/gun-jumping remains quite unpredictable.
This article was originally published in Issue 12.1 of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. If you would like to receive a hard copy of the magazine, you can subscribe here.
