AMCU Clearance shall be out of Reach for Ukraine Sanctioned Companies

CMS Cameron McKenna, Kyiv, Ukraine,
Tue, Dec 5, 2017

On 09 November 2017, the Parliament passed a Law aimed at preventing companies subject to special economic sanctions from obtaining clearance with the Ukrainian competition authority for certain notifiable transactions. This is the Law “On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine ‘On Protection of Economic Competition’ Regarding the Improvement of Control Procedures for Mergers of Business Entities” (the “Law”).

The AMCU shall in particular reject merger filing or, if an in-depth review is opened during merger control procedure, stop the review of the case without granting a decision on merits of the case, if a participant to a merger (e.g., the buyer or seller in the notifiable transaction, or any of their group entities) is subject to special economic sanctions imposed by Ukraine.

The Law is expected to apply retroactively and shall thus allow the AMCU to recall clearances issued to sanctioned companies before entry of the Law into force (pursuant to the transcript of the Parliament’s hearing, as final text of the Law is not yet available).

The Law will come into force on the day following its official promulgation.

Legislation:

Draft Law “On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine ‘On Protection of Economic Competition’ Regarding the Improvement of Control Procedures for Concentrations of Business Entities”, No. 4287 dated 22 March 2017

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