On October the 5th, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine appealed
to the Economic court of Kiev with a claim about the compulsory
collection of a fine of nearly 86 billion hryvnas from the Russian
company Gazprom, the press service of the committee reports.
The committee also asks the court to oblige Gazprom to stop
violating the legislation related to the abuse of its monopoly
position in the market of natural gas transit through the Ukrainian
Gas Transportation System.
As previously reported, on January the 25th 2016, the Antimonopoly
Committee of Ukraine made a decision to impose a fine for 85,966 billion
UAH on Gazprom with the wording "for violation of economic competition
in the form of inaction, which is the refusal to adopt measures
to ensure the natural gas transit services through pipelines across
the territory of Ukraine on reasonable terms. It would be impossible
in the conditions of significant competition on the market and can lead
to infringement of the interests of the Naftogaz Ukraine in the form
of monopoly abuse on the market of natural gas transit through pipelines
across the Ukraine territory as a buyer."
Gazprom officials said that the AMCU has no powers in the matter of
regulation of transit through the Ukrainian territory. However, at
the last possible day for filing a lawsuit - on April the 12th - they
applied to the Kiev Economic Court to invalidate the Committee's
decision. The Kiev Court by the decision of April,13 returned without
consideration the Gazprom's claim challenging the penalty imposed
by the AMCU. The reason for returning was the improper execution
of the statement of claim, namely the failure to provide evidence
that the person, who signed the claim, has the necessary powers.
On May the 4th, Gazprom appealed to the Kiev Economic Court of Appeal,
which on May the 1th8 left the decision of the first instance without
changes. On June 7, Gazprom filed a cassation appeal to the Supreme
Economic Court of Ukraine, which on July 13 refused to satisfy the
complaint of Gazprom and upheld the resolutions of the first and
appellate instances.
News
