The Supreme Economic Court of Ukraine refused to satisfy the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine’s cassation appeal against the digital terrestrial TV operator “Zeonbud”.
October 25, the Supreme Economic Court decided to refuse the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine’s cassation appeal, filed against the “Zeonbud”, provider of four national multiplexes MX-1, MX-2, MX-3 and MX-5. This is reported by the “Detector Media”.
The Supreme Economic Court affirmed the decision of the Kyiv Economic Court dated 16/05/2016 and the ruling of the Kyiv Economic Court of Appeal dated 20/07/2016, which revoked the resolution of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine № 606-p dated 12/03/2015 on imposing a penalty of UAH 44 million 504 thousand and 917 on the “Zeonbud” for monopoly abuse.
According to the Supreme Economic Court, the lower courts came to the reasonable grounds for declaring invalid the AMCU’s resolution. The courts drew a particular attention to the fact that the AMCU, while researching telecom services of distributing TV broadcasts in a digital format (DVB-T2/MPEG-4), did not define the scope of the researched market, did not analyze and form the group of substitutional goods (commodity groups), and did not indicate their lack.
Let us recall that on December 23, 2014, the Antimonopoly Committee declared the “Zeonbud”’s monopoly in the telecom services of distributing TV broadcasts in a digital format (DVB-T2/MPEG-4). In January 2015, the AMCU opened a case on the provider’s monopoly abuse.
The “Zeonbud” did not agree with its monopoly status and appealed the authority’s resolution in court, winning at first instance: On March 18, 2015, the Kyiv District Administrative Court ruled in the “Zeonbud”’s favor, declaring unlawful and revoking the AMCU’s resolution.
The AMCU filed an appeal and won: On June 18, 2015, the Kyiv Administrative Court of Appeal revoked the first instance decision and declared lawful the recognition of the “Zeonbud”’s monopoly.
The “Zeonbud” immediately filed a cassation appeal. The case was repeatedly postponed due to the “Zeonbud” representatives’ failure to appear in court. On April 7, 2016, the Supreme Administrative Court of Ukraine (SACU) unexpectedly found in the “Zeonbud”’s favor. The SACU agreed to the provider’s new standing that the dispute would have to be settled under economic and not administrative procedure and, consequently, closed the cassation trial, revoking the rulings of lower courts (the first one in the “Zeonbud”’s favor, and the second one in the AMCU’s favor).
While the cassation was under consideration, on December 3, 2015, the AMCU adopted another resolution to impose a penalty of UAH 44.5 million on the “Zeonbud” for its monopoly abuse. According to the authority, the abuse consisted in provider’s setting prices for telecom services in September 2011 to October 2014, which would be impossible to set under a strong market competition. The Company promised to appeal the authority’s resolution in court.
In March 2016, the “Zeonbud” filed a lawsuit against the AMCU with the Kyiv Economic Court, demanding to invalidate the authority’s resolution on imposing a penalty of UAH 44.5 million. In May 16, 2016, the Kyiv Economic Court satisfied the claim and invalidated the AMCU’s resolution on the monopoly abuse and a penalty of UAH 44.5 million. On July 20, 2016, this ruling was affirmed by the Kyiv Economic Court of Appeal. Today, this decision is also affirmed under the cassation procedure.
