News
Press Release
12th Board Session of Agency of Republic of Kazakhstan for Competition Protection (Antimonopoly Agency) January 26, 2010
The decisions resulted from investigations were confirmed at the session, also the opinions on appeals against decisions resulted from preliminary consideration of antimonopoly legislation violations were confirmed as well. The decisions on applications for economic concentration were also confirmed at the session. Besides, the Register of dominant or monopolistic entities (the “Register”) was considered to be amended.
The Board decided to abrogate the Agency Board resolution of June 19, 2009, regarding imposing penalties on entities, which violate antimonopoly legislation for the first time. The reason of such decision is that more than a year has passed after the “On Competition” Law adoption. The antimonopoly authority explained new law regulations to entities during the passed year.
It was decided to bring actions against a gas supplying enterprise (“Gorgaz-Servis” LLC) in the Northern Kazakhstan oblast for abuse of dominant position. The LLC set an unreasonable coefficient of converting volume measures of liquefied gas into mass measures, and this LLC also overpriced its services, which caused damage to customers. The fine will estimate 22 820 125 tenge.
The investigations revealed that two gas supplying enterprises the “AlemGaz” LLC and the “Karaganda Gaz Servis” LLC in the Karagandinskaya oblast had an anticompetitive agreement, which was a competition restriction to other gas suppliers and discrimination of them in setting high prices. The Board decided to bring actions against these LLCs in administrative violation according to paragraph 3 article 147 of the Administrative Violations Code. The total fine will estimate more than 5.5 million tenge.
The investigations concerning the “KazMunaiGaz Onimderi” JSC and other entities were completed. They are accused of antimonopoly concerted actions in unreasonable sale restriction of petroleum sold by cash money. These entities had parallel operations in unreasonable sale restriction of petroleum sold by cash money at filling stations (they sold petroleum by coupons only). Thus, they gained profits from these operations, what could be impossible without such anticompetitive concerted actions. The Board decided to bring actions against these entities in administrative violations. The preliminary fine is 38 102 362 tenge, and 36 516 052 from it is imposed on the “KazMunaiGaz Onimderi” JSC.
The anticompetitive concerted actions in setting and maintaining prices for petroleum sold were detected during investigations of petroleum market entities which operate in the Southern regions of the country. As a result of high parallel pricing at minimum costs, these entities gained profits during a three-month period, which covered their costs. They could not gain these profits, if they did not have such violations. The Board decided to bring actions against these entities in administrative violations. Both the monopolistic profit and a fine estimate 38 250 365 tenge.
The materials on administrative cases regarding entities mentioned above will be submitted to administrative courts.
Additionally, the Board considered appeals from a number of entities against decisions made by the Agency’s interregional inspections regarding preliminary revisions of cases. Thus, the appeal of the “Pervoye Kreditnoye Bureau” LLC was partially satisfied. The other appeals were not satisfied since the decisions on these cases are reasonable and irrevocable.
The analysis for 9 months of 2009 showed that there is no any dominance in the market of high-octane petroleum of the АИ-95/96/98 sorts. Thus, the entities selling petroleum of these sorts were excluded from the Register. The Board’s decision was also caused by the fact that petroleum of these sorts is not so socially important and such high-octane petroleum is usually purchased by customers having expensive vehicles (business class, off-road vehicles, etc.)
Next session of the Board is scheduled for the third decade of February.
