Protection of Rights of Undertakings and the Criminal Nature of Proceedings of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine: Practice of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine and the Supreme Court

Abstract

The article is devoted to examination of the practice of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine (the "CCU") and the Supreme Court (the "SC") regarding their perception and application of the practice of the European Court of Human Rights (the "ECHR") on autonomous interpretation of the term "criminal charge" for the purpose of protecting human rights under the Convention for the Protection of Human Rightsand Fundamental Freedoms (the "Convention"), to which Ukraine is a party, and equating the decisions of competition authorities to "criminal charges", in part of equating administrative proceedings of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (the "AMCU") on holding undertakings liable for infringements of Ukrainian antimonopoly legislation to criminal proceedings in part of requirements for protection of rights of undertakings.
 Analysis of the CCU's practice shows that it generally accepts and applies the ECHR's practice on equating certain administrative proceedings to "criminal" ones within the meaning of the Convention and extending criminal law guarantees to these proceedings. The CCU has not yet formed a position specifically with respect to criminal character of the AMCU's proceedings. At the same time, the CCU's positions developed considering the ECHR's practice, stating that criminal law principles and guarantees should apply to administrative proceedings concerning violations of customs rules, and the references made by the CCU to one of the most well-known ECHR's decisions on extending "criminal charge" to a decision of competition authority on imposition of a fine for violation of competition laws - A. Menarini Diagnostics S.R.L. v. Italy, when substantiating these positions, allow to assert the likelihood of the CCU equating the AMCU's administrative proceedings to criminal ones in part of requirements for protection of rights of undertakings, when this issue arises before it.
 As for the Supreme Court, questions about application of the Engel criteria to the AMCU's proceedings on enforcement of antimonopoly legislation increasingly arise before it. Undertakings seek the SC's conclusions on application of these criteria to the AMCU's proceedings. The SC has been reluctant to form such conclusions and has denied their formation thus far. The SC's practice, where it recognized the AMCU's proceedings as criminal ones for the purpose of protecting rights of undertakings, is currently absent. Therefore, one can only wait to see how the SC's practice on this issue will develop in the future.