Antimonopoly Committee head expects adoption of bill with first part of committee reform in Jan

Head of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) Olha Pischanska expects the adoption of bill No. 5431, which contains the first part of the committee's reform, in January 2022, and the second part of the reform could be approved throughout the year.

"Now bill No. 5431 is being finalized by the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Economic Development, taking into account the comments and proposals of MPs. We hope that it will be submitted for the second reading in January next year," Pischanska said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

The approximation of the norms of Ukrainian competition law to European and world ones is indeed among the conditions of the IMF, as well as in the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement, the head of the committee recalled.

"We can say that bill No. 5431 is the first stage of the committee reform, it is the "child" of bill No. 2730. It [bill No. 2730] turned out to be so voluminous and complex that it would be very difficult to implement it. Its implementation is under threat because in order to adopt it, it would be necessary to amend the Constitution of Ukraine. It is about the norms for appointing state commissioners and the head of the committee. Therefore, it was decided to divide the reform into several stages," she said.

Bill No. 5431 passed its first reading in the spring, but caused a lot of excitement and criticism in the business community. "Together with the author of the bill, we held meetings with business associations, in particular EBA [the European Business Association] and American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine. We analyzed their proposals, comments, warnings. Then we submitted proposals from the Antimonopoly Committee for the second reading. After the adoption of the law, a large base of bylaws should be developed. And then immediately we will start preparing for the second stage of the reform," Pischanska said.

Pischanska said that the bill prepared for the second reading will propose to establish subsidiary liability, as well as assigning the status of an executive letter to the committee's decisions.

In addition, the bill proposes to raise the level of salaries of employees of the antimonopoly committee.

According to her, the second stage of the Antimonopoly Committee reform is expected in 2022.

Source: www.en.interfax.com.ua