In recent years, the Ukrainian competition legislation has undergone multiple updates aimed at aligning it with international best practices and European Union standards. These reforms reflect a broader effort to improve enforcement mechanisms and create a more predictable business environment. Key amendments have focused on strengthening the powers of AMCU, refining merger control procedures, and introducing clearer rules on concerted actions and abuse of dominance. Additionally, Ukraine has been working to harmonise its competition policies with EU competition law, particularly in the context of its commitments under the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement as well as implementing OECD recommendations from previous peer reviews. This alignment aims to foster greater investor confidence, reduces legal uncertainties and facilitates competition in domestic and international markets. Moreover, the incorporation of modern economic analysis tools and best practices from the OECD and other international institutions ensures that Ukraine's competition framework remains effective in addressing market distortions. While challenges remain, the overall direction of these legislative updates is positive, bringing Ukraine closer to a competitive, innovation-driven and rule-based market economy.
The role of AMCU in overseeing SOEs is particularly important given the extensive and decentralised nature of SOEs in the country. The very high number of SOEs, their different ownership (ministries, central executive bodies, state agencies) and their broad reach create significant challenges for ensuring competitive neutrality in Ukraine. By subjecting all SOEs to the same competition rules as private companies, Ukraine ensures that its competition regime is in line with the OECD Recommendation on Competitive Neutrality [OECD/LEGAL/0462] (2021[12]). AMCU’s role in monitoring and enforcing competition law among SOEs is crucial in preventing market distortions. By holding SOEs accountable to the same standards as private firms, AMCU can help mitigate the risks that these entities are in a position to leverage their government support and engage in anticompetitive practices, such as anticompetitive pricing (predatory or excessive), exclusionary practices or tactics. Moreover, AMCU’s involvement in overseeing SOEs reinforces the credibility and consistency of Ukraine’s competition regime, sending a strong message that no entity is above the law, regardless of its ownership. This broad and impartial enforcement not only fosters competition but also supports the long-term growth of private businesses, which rely on fair market conditions to thrive. In this context, AMCU plays a key role in promoting transparency, preventing anti-competitive behaviour and contributing to the overall competitiveness of the Ukrainian economy. That said, this peer review finds that there is still a way to go reducing the role of SOEs in economy trying to enhance private investment.
Nevertheless, the OECD could identify some aspects where there could be room for improvement.
The objectives of the competition policy outlined above encompass a broad and ambitious set of goals. The current formulation of policy objectives is excessively broad, which could hamper their practical utility as a basis for planning, implementation and performance assessment. Objectives that lack specificity make it difficult to determine whether the activities undertaken are aligned with intended outcomes or whether those outcomes are being achieved at all. This vagueness could not only weaken strategic focus but also obstruct effective monitoring and evaluation, as it becomes challenging to define measurable indicators or benchmarks for success. In such contexts, even suboptimal or poorly targeted actions may appear justifiable, simply because the goals themselves are too vaguely defined to allow for meaningful scrutiny. To enhance accountability and drive performance, objectives should be revisited and reformulated in a manner that is clear, measurable and outcome-oriented, enabling both internal review and external oversight.
Some of the objectives extend beyond the traditional scope of competition enforcement. While protecting the competitive process, fostering economic growth, encouraging innovation and ensuring consumer welfare align with well-established principles of competition policy, other objectives—such as safeguarding small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and fighting unfair practices—are less conventional. Competition policy typically prioritises efficiency and market dynamics over the protection of specific market participants. While SMEs play a crucial role in the economy, shielding them from competition may, in some cases, distort market incentives and reduce overall efficiency. Instead, competition law generally aims to create a level playing field where firms, regardless of size, compete on their merits. The inclusion of distributional concerns and fairness further expands the policy’s scope, raising questions about whether competition enforcement should address broader socio-economic goals that are often better suited for other areas of regulation, such as industrial or social policy.
A system of prior notification for agreements, especially one without any prioritisation mechanisms, presents significant drawbacks for competition enforcement. As international practice consistently shows, this system creates a significant burden on competition authorities, forcing them to process numerous notifications, many of which are inconsequential or unlikely to pose any serious competitive harm. Without a means of prioritising cases based on their potential market impact, the agency’s resources are spread thin, reducing its ability to focus on the most harmful practices that it should be actively investigating. The result is a system where serious infringements, which could significantly harm consumers and the economy, are not prioritised, while less harmful practices occupy valuable time and resources. A more efficient and effective approach would be for competition authorities to focus their efforts on detecting and investigating violations ex officio, which has been proven to yield better results in identifying and addressing the truly damaging behaviours in the market. According to AMCU, the system of prior notifications could be abolished by Draft Law 12440.3
The lack of a clear allocation of responsibilities between AMCU and sectoral regulators creates risks of overlapping functions, inconsistent enforcement, or even conflicting decisions. While AMCU focuses on ensuring fair competition and preventing anticompetitive practices, regulators in industries such as energy, telecommunications and finance often have broader policy objectives, including market stability, consumer protection and service quality. These differing priorities can lead to situations where regulatory interventions contradict competition principles, creating legal uncertainty for businesses and market participants. Additionally, overlapping jurisdiction may result in inefficiencies, delays in decision-making and increased compliance burdens for companies navigating multiple regulatory frameworks. Establishing clearer co‑ordination mechanisms (such as those included in some MOUs) and defining precise competencies for each authority would help mitigate these challenges and promote a more coherent regulatory environment.
The unclear division of responsibilities between AMCU and sectoral regulators can lead to situations where AMCU intervenes in cases that would typically fall under the jurisdiction of industry-specific regulators. This dynamic has both positive and negative implications. On the positive side, AMCU involvement can serve as a corrective mechanism for inefficient regulation, especially when regulators prioritise sectoral stability and investment protection over competition and consumer welfare. Sectoral regulators, being more familiar with industry-specific legislation, may focus on ensuring compliance with technical and operational standards but pay less attention to market efficiency, barriers to entry and potential anticompetitive effects of their policies. In such cases, AMCU’s intervention can help address distortions that arise from overregulation, restrictive licensing regimes, or other structural inefficiencies that hinder competition and harm consumers. By considering competition principles in regulated markets, AMCU can act as a counterbalance to excessive state intervention and promote a more market-driven approach. However, there are also significant downsides to this overlap. When AMCU devotes time and resources to cases that are primarily regulatory in nature rather than directly related to competition law enforcement, it risks diverting attention away from its core mandate of tackling hard-core antitrust violations, such as cartels, abuse of dominance and anticompetitive mergers. This misallocation of resources may reduce AMCU’s effectiveness in addressing the most harmful market distortions, which require detailed economic analysis and strong enforcement measures. Moreover, AMCU's involvement in regulatory matters could blur the distinction between competition enforcement and competition advocacy, potentially weakening the impact of both functions. Instead of focusing on concrete antitrust infringements, AMCU may end up engaging in policy debates and regulatory disputes, which, while important, should not overshadow its primary role as an enforcer of competition law. To avoid these pitfalls, clearer jurisdictional boundaries and structured co-operation mechanisms between AMCU and sectoral regulators are essential to ensure that both competition enforcement and sectoral regulation serve their intended purposes without unnecessary conflicts or inefficiencies.
The provision enabling the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine to authorise agreements that have been previously rejected by AMCU represents a deviation from established international practices. Effective competition enforcement is generally grounded in objective legal and economic analysis, aimed at permitting only those agreements that enhance or do not harm competition. Introducing the possibility for executive intervention on the basis of broadly defined “public interest” considerations may blur the boundaries between technical enforcement and broader policy objectives. International experience suggests that where public interest concerns are deemed relevant, they are best articulated ex ante in the form of clear, non-discriminatory rules of general application. This promotes legal certainty, transparency and consistent enforcement. Moreover, any decision to override the findings of a competition authority should be accompanied by appropriate safeguards, including the possibility of judicial review. Without such safeguards, there is a risk that predictability and neutrality in competition enforcement may be undermined, potentially encouraging market participants to seek ad hoc exemptions rather than adhering to established competition principles. For reference, according to AMCU, the Ministerial permission will be abolished with DL 12 440.
