MESSY MARKET: Ukraine's anti-monopoly committee tries to break up a cartel it helped create

摘要

June 1, 2021, marked another step toward the end of a multimillion-dollar anti-competition lawsuit brought against four tobacco manufacturers and a distributor in Ukraine. On that day, the country's Supreme Court ruled that a uah460 million ($16.87 million) fine imposed by the Anti- Monopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) against Imperial Tobacco Ukraine (ITU) and Imperial Tobacco Productions Ukraine for alleged violation of antitrust legislation was groundless. The Supreme Court found that Imperial's Ukrainian subsidiaries had not been involved in the events that had unlawfully left the country with only one cigarette distributor. In a press release, Imperial Tobacco Ukraine's CEO, Ratislav Cernak, welcomed the decision, saying it was an encouraging sign for all foreign investors in Ukraine. The ruling followed the overturning of similar fines for British American Tobacco and Tedis in February and for Philip Morris International in April 2021. At the time of writing, Japan Tobacco's case was still pending before the Supreme Court. In October 2019, the AMCU imposed a record fine of uah6.5 billion-one of the biggest in the country's history-on the local affiliates of PMI, BAT and Imperial Brands, along with Tedis Ukraine, the country's largest tobacco distributor, for conspiring to eliminate competition in cigarette distribution. The committee claimed that the tobacco companies and Tedis had conspired to keep new businesses from entering the market. The companies appealed but lost their cases in the first instance court. Both manufacturers and the American Chamber of Commerce (ACC) in Ukraine expressed concern about the anti-competition trial, arguing the defendants had not been given full access to the evidence on which the AMCU based its allegations and that insufficient attention was paid to the companies' arguments during the trial.