The law “On Competition” was adopted in a new edition

The new act passed the final reading in the Legislative Chamber in February and was approved by the Senate on March 2, Spot reports citing UzA.uz. The law establishes the main directions of the state policy for the protection of competition, including:

• prevention and suppression of anti-competitive actions;
• ensuring freedom of economic activity and movement of goods;
• creation of conditions for the effective functioning of commodity and financial markets.

The concept of antimonopoly compliance is introduced. This is a system of internal organizational procedures to ensure compliance with the requirements of competition law, identify the risks of their violation and prevent these risks.

Its implementation will be mandatory for companies with a dominant market position and for associations of legal entities. Compliance will also need to be introduced in companies with a state share of more than 50% that have sold goods and services for more than 100,000 base design value (33 billion soums) annually over the past 3 years, and for firms affiliated with them.

The criteria for dominance have been revised. Now they include companies with a share in a certain market of at least 40% and annual revenues of more than 30,000 base design value (9.9 billion soums), as well as natural monopoly entities.

The institution of excellent negotiating power is also being introduced. We are talking about the ability of a company or a group of persons without a dominant position to unilaterally influence the definition of the terms of a transaction, territory and the sale price of goods.

A participant in an anticompetitive agreement (cartel conspiracy), who was the first to voluntarily inform the antimonopoly authorities about the fact of an agreement or conspiracy, is released from liability.

All types of state support (tax and customs benefits, subsidies, grants, guarantees, preferential loans, etc.) should be considered for the impact on competition. It is prohibited to provide assistance that adversely affects the competitive environment.

The criteria for economic concentration transactions (mergers, acquisitions, etc.) that require the consent of the Competition Development Committee are also being revised:

• the total balance sheet value of assets or proceeds from the sale of goods for the last year of the participants in the transaction – more than 500 thousand base design value or 165 billion soums (previously 100 thousand base design value or 30 billion soums);
• the balance sheet value of assets or the annual proceeds from the sale of goods of one of the participants is more than 250 thousand base design value or 82.5 billion soums.

The law enters into force 3 months after the date of its official publication.