Ukraine seeks antimonopoly case against Russia’s Gazprom

KIEV, Apr 22 (PRIME) -- The Ukrainian government has requested the antimonopoly committee start an antimonopoly investigation of Russian gas giant Gazprom, Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk said Wednesday.

“The Ukrainian government is turning to the antimonopoly committee to start an antimonopoly investigation against Russian company Gazprom, which acts on discriminatory, non-competitive conditions and causes losses to the Ukrainian economy,” he said, as cited by the government’s press office.

“We are also turning to our E.U. partners to hold this investigation jointly and establish the fact of Gazprom’s monopolism not only in the E.U., but in Ukraine as well.”

On Wednesday, the European Commission officially charged Gazprom with violation of the E.U. competition rules for which it may pay a fine of 10% of an annual turnover. The commission started investigation over possible Gazprom’s violations, which cover markets of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria in 2012. According to the authority, Gazprom restricted free supplies to the countries by splitting gas markets, preventing diversification of supplies and setting unfair prices.

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