moldova armenia kazahstan azerbaijan belarus kirgistan russia turkmenistan ukraine

Aequitas

Almaty, Astana and Atyrau, Kazakhstan
www.aequitas.kz

"This firm is always reliable - it gives consistently good advice and maintains a high quality of work."

Chambers Global

Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners

Moscow and St.Petersburg, Russia
London, UK
www.epam.ru

"The best choice for solving multilevel issues with a marked Russian character"

Chambers Global

ACT (Ashgabat Consulting Team)

Ashgabat, Turkmenistan
www.actltd.ru

"No one is perfect,a team can be!"

Chambers Global

FINA LLP

Baku, Azerbaijan
www.fina.az

Recommended by Best Lawyers® and Who'sWhoLegal

Chambers Global

Vlasova Mikhel & Partners LLC

Minsk, Belarus
www.vmp.by

"Full service firm that dominates the legal market"

Chambers Global

RULG - Ukrainian Legal Group

Kiev, Ukraine
www.rulg.com

"Recommended by Best Lawyers ® in corporate, M&A, antitrust, arbitration and mediation, labour and employment and energy and natural resources."

Chambers Global

Ameria

Yerevan, Armenia
www.ameria.am

"First on the list for local work with an international dimensions"
"Impressive knowledge and responsiveness"

Chambers Global

Turcan Cazac

Chisinau, Moldova
www.turcanlaw.md

"The leading law practice in the country"
"Very professional, very efficient and very knowledgeable"

Chambers Global

Kalikova & Associates

Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
www.k-a.kg

"The leader in the market and the first choice for international companies and law firms that do not have a local presence"

Chambers Global

FOREWORD

We are pleased to present the second edition of the “Comparative Summary of Antitrust Laws in the CIS Economic Region” – a joint publication of the CIS Leading Counsel Network.

The CIS Leading Counsel Network (LCN) was established in 2009 by nine leading law firms from the countries of the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) economic region, and it aims to transcend the national boundaries and offer clients seamless advice across these fast developing markets, which are increasingly attracting international investments.  LCN brings together the following prominent national law firms: in Armenia - Ameria, in Azerbaijan - FINA, in Belarus - Vlasova Mikhel & Partners, in Kazakhstan - Aequitas, in the Kyrgyz Republic - Kalikova & Associates, in Moldova - Turcan Cazac, in Russia - Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners, in Turkmenistan - ACT and in Ukraine - RULG – Ukrainian Legal Group.

LCN members have a long history of successful collaboration. The alliance takes to a new level their time-tested relationships and offers clients integrated teams in these dynamic and challenging jurisdictions.  Our several successful joint workshops and publications attest to the benefit of joining efforts and offering global business audiences up-to-date coverage of legal developments in our part of the world.  Our other publications include “Comparative Summary of Anticorruption Laws in the CIS Economic Region” (in its second edition) and “CIS: Tax Compass 2011”, which are available at www.cislcn.com.

We chose the topic of antitrust regime because of the increased global M&A activity and the renewed interest of the international investment community in the CIS economic region.  A clear tendency has also emerged of cross-border deals involving several countries of our region, requiring a comparative cross-regional analysis.  In addition, the laws and regulations, as well as the practices of antitrust authorities in our jurisdictions are becoming increasingly comprehensive and sophisticated, which prompts the need to regularly monitor changes in the legislation and implementation practices.

We believe that this practical Guide will help you navigate through the antitrust regimes in the CIS economic region and stay current with the updates that we will be adding on a regular basis.  We decided to publish this Guide in the on-line format, because this will allow us to add regular updates and our readers will benefit from an easy to use practical structure of the Guide.  Each country material consists of five sections covering:

  1. Overview of competition regulations and authorities
  2. Prevention of monopolistic activities and unfair competition, including subsections on:
    • Dominance
    • Monopolistic agreements and concerted actions
    • Unfair competition
    • Antitrust investigation
    • Implications for infringers
  3. Control over economic concentration, including subsections on:
    • Transactions subject to approval
    • Approval / notification thresholds
    • "Groups" and "intragroup deals"
    • Exceptions from transaction approval requirements
    • General approval procedure
    • Implications of a failure to obtain approval
  4. Current case law trends
  5. Basic trends in the development of antitrust laws in 2012-2013

The information we offer in the Guide stems from joint expertise that we have developed as members of the first integrated regional network, working together on several major cross-regional deals.  We are happy to share our knowledge with you and hope that this practical Guide will help you to improve the understanding of the antitrust regimes in the CIS economic region.

Irina Paliashvili
Managing Partner, RULG-Ukrainian Legal Group
Co-chair, CIS LCN

Dimitry Afanasiev
Chairman, Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners
Co-chair, CIS LCN