Head of the Anti-Monopoly Committee Met Businesses

On August 11, on base of the European Business Association, representatives of the business community had an opportunity to meet with Yurii Terentyev, the Head of the Antimonopoly Committee. The Ukrainian Oil & Gas Association was represented by its President Dmytro Kulik.

The main issue discussed was the administrative reform of the regulatory agency. It implies a reduction in the number of territorial branches of the Committee from 24 regions to 7 interregional ones, which should reduce the amount of financing from the national budget, but improve the quality component of the AMCU work.

The Antimonopoly Committee expects that the changes will result in personnel renewal, improve the competence of employees, systematize communication with business, introduce a corporate document management system that will minimize chances of unjustified pressure on business structures at different levels.

From the position of the Oil & Gas Association members, upcoming structural reforms as a whole can be assessed positively, since they should influence the effectiveness of the department. However, there is a concern that the reform of territorial units will not affect the basic principles of work of Central Administration of the AMCU, in particular, in the field of compliance with competition laws.

“The Antimonopoly Committee is a body that should promote the creation of conditions for the development of fair economic competition. As representatives of business, we expect the Committee to work in this direction more efficiently. The possibility of repetition of the situation when the regulator puts pressure on legal participants of the oil and gas market, but neglects the obvious abuse of monopoly position by other players, remains. For us, qualitative changes in the work of the agency are rather more relevant, and not the quantitative ones,” said Dmytro Kulik, President of the Oil & Gas Association.