Wednesday, 25 December 2013
State Commission for Protection of Economic Competition Reveals Numerous Cases of Unfair Competition in 2013
The State Commission for Protection of Economic Competition of the Republic of Armenia continued its activity in 2013, identifying numerous cases of abuse of dominant position. This was stated by chairman of the State Commission for Protection of Economic Competition Artak Shaboyan during this year’s final press conference at the Government Press Center.
“Breaches were exposed in the areas of import and sales of medicines, water, rail, urban telecommunication, interregional passenger traffic. The offenders have undergone strict sanctions. The Commission identified numerous cases of anti-competitive agreements, in particular in the field of public procurement. 8 business entities were subjected to serious measures of responsibility,” chairman of the State Commission for Protection of Economic Competition said.
According to Artak Shaboyan, those entities had reached anti-competitive agreements to sell goods for quite high prices to a number of social institutions, causing thereby great losses in terms of State budget funds. Having a dominating role in public procurement, these companies were fined 40 million drams.
During the year, numerous cases of unfair competition were identified when economic entities resorted to false discounts, which in many cases concerned 1-2 commodities.
Artak Shaboyan assured that they will continue to monitor the risky markets with dominating entities.
Legislative changes were said to have been made to improve economic competition.
