A €6 Billion Unpaid Fine: The Ukrainian Antitrust Case Against Gazprom

摘要

The conventional wisdom is that the AMC decision against Gazprom came with political strings attached. Many commentators claimed that it was taken to keep pressure on the Russian gas giant in Stockholm or set off potential negative result of the arbitration. The paper has shown that this is not the whole picture and presented the case for a complete rethinking of how the Ukrainian enforcement should be seen. Namely, approaching the AMC decision as an extension of the arbitrational disputes ignores many nuances and developments happening around and potentially explaining things that some may (deliberately or out of ignorance) present as signs of AMC's political bias behind the fine. For example, the fast pace of the AMC's case may potentially be explained by lack of cooperation on Gazprom's side possibly caused by the Federal Decree. As to substantive allegations, the emphasis should rather be laid on the fact that the AMC is an institution of a contracting party of the ECT and a country which is eager to integrate into the European gas market. The AMC's enforcement, therefore, may well be impacted by widely shared concerns over Russian gas transit diversification policy bearing potential risks for competition in the EU and undermining its non-competition policy objectives.