The Decree of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan No. UP-6019 dated July 6, 2020, as well as the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers No. 114 dated March 2, 2021, determines a phased introduction of the antimonopoly compliance system into the activities of government bodies, local executive bodies, monopoly enterprises and corporate customers. To this day, a total of 102 entities, including 14 natural monopolies, 25 enterprises with a dominant position in the commodity or financial markets, 37 local executive bodies, 22 government bodies and 4 corporate customers have fully implemented the antimonopoly compliance system.
In the course of implementation, the system began to give the first positive results. In particular, authorized persons responsible for compliance with antimonopoly legislation at Uztransgaz JSC, Navoi Mining and Metallurgical Plant JSC, Maksam-Chirchik JSC and Asakabank JSC reviewed more than 100 tender documents. When examining the state of competition in tenders, it was found that there were 38 cases of concerted actions between bidders. Violations of the law were prevented by making appropriate proposals to cancel and reorganize these tenders.
In addition, in 2022, in the process of public procurement conducted by an authorized person of Uzmetkombinat JSC, 10 cases of affiliation of participants were identified and cases of vertical coordination were eliminated.
While recognizing the progress that has been made in this area, there is still a lot of work to be done. At the moment, the antimonopoly authority has studied and evaluated the reports of state bodies and business entities on compliance with antimonopoly laws at the end of 2022.
The fact that, according to the research, the effectiveness of the antimonopoly compliance system of most business entities is recognized as “unsatisfactory”, indicates that employees responsible for the antimonopoly compliance system at enterprises do not have sufficient knowledge and skills in terms of the requirements of competition law.
This, in turn, has a negative impact on the effective organization of activities aimed at ensuring compliance with competition law and preventing violations.
Based on this, it was decided to regularly organize short-term training seminars in government and local executive authorities, as well as for authorized persons in business entities where an antimonopoly compliance system has been introduced to clarify the requirements of legislative documents on competition.
For this purpose, on 8 June 2023, the Competition Promotion and Consumer Protection Committee organized a workshop on “Effective implementation of the antimonopoly compliance system is a guarantee of compliance with competition law” explaining the content and substance of the requirements of competition law documents to employees of business entities responsible for the operation of the antimonopoly compliance system.
The seminar focused on the importance of introducing an anti-monopoly compliance system for economic operators, monitoring compliance with competition law in public procurement, and the ongoing reforms to improve stock exchange regulation system.
EVENTS WITH PARTICIPATION OF MEMBERS OF PUBLIC COUNCIL
