OREANDA-NEWS. July 14, 2010. The total amount of fines applied by the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine to the violators in the first half of this year is more than 15.5 million, more than 13.5 million of which is already paid to the State budget. It is 3.5 times higher than the same period of last year. That the chairperson of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine stated during briefing at the Government House.

"The Antimonopoly Committee in the first half of the year has found and stopped more than 1.4 thousand violations of competition law", - Oleksiy Kostusev said, adding that the direct economic effect of this was more than 68 million UAH.

The Head of the Antimonopoly Committee stressed that enhancing the effectiveness of the Committee is the restructuring the department from areal to functional principle of work. The result of the corresponding structural changes is creation of units engaged in investigation of monopoly abuse, unfair competition, and deceptive advertising. Oleksiy Kostusev noted that 2.47 thousand appeals of individuals and entities were processed during the first half of 2010.

In addition, the Head of the Antimonopoly Committee said that during the first half of this year, the Committee applied the largest fines on such companies as: Ukrnafta, SC Ukrgazvydobuvannya "Naftogaz Ukraine", PJSC "Ukrtatnafta" Boehringer Ingelheim company RCV GmbH & Co KG (Vienna, Austria), SE "Sea trade port "Yuznyi", "Ukrtransgaz", "Naftogaz Ukraine", LLC "Rainbow-LTD" (Kyiv), "Sanofi-Aventis Group" firm (Paris, French Republic), PC "HeidelbergCement Ukraine", OJSC EuroCement-Ukraine".

According to Oleksiy Kostusev today the check is undertaken on abuses of monopoly by cards Visa and Master Card. In addition, the level of prices for domestic and international air transportation and the cost of telephone roaming service are analyzed.

The Head of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine also said that the South Western Railway has reduced the amount of the fee on purchasing and returning tickets. "By some estimates, it is clear that citizens will save on this 30 or even 40 million UAH each year" - Oleksiy Kostusev said.

"Among the priorities in our activities, as it was before, we see the competition protection at all socially important markets" - Oleksiy Kostusev said.