Administrative sanctions for anti-trust violations: interpretation issues

Abstract

The legal definition of anti-competitive offenses and the size of fines imposed for their commission are fully consistent with the best international standards and foreign practices. However, in order to further increase the effec-tiveness of application of competition law through its proper interpretation, it should be assumed that the provisions of competition law on sanctions for its violation are inextricably linked with the objectives of competition law, which means that each sanction should be aimed at supporting and protection of economic competition, restriction of monopoly in economic activity to ensure the effective functioning of the economy of Ukraine on the basis of the development of unrestrained competition, which excludes taking into account when deciding on the guilt of the business entity for anticompetitive actions, protection of the national producer and interests of consumers if it is out of connection with fairness of competition. Also, to improve the interpretation of the rule of law in context of the 
 requirement of proportionality of sanctions for anti-trust violations, we note that in exceptional circumstances, the application of competition law, businesses should not lose the opportunity to conduct business and compete prop-erly on fair terms, which determines the need to interpret competition law in context of fines for anticompetitive offenses so that the impact of fines on the financial condition and solvency of economic entities does not irreversibly undermine their business activities with their actual withdrawal from the market. For instance, structural remedies, such as a forced separation of business entity holding a dominant position in the market, are subject to a stricter pro-portionality requirement as they can only be imposed either where there is no equally effective behavioural remedy or where any equally effective behavioural remedy would be more burdensome for the undertaking concerned than the structural remedy.