2 February 2011
Changes in merger filing procedure in Ukraine

The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMC) has recently introduced changes to the merger filing procedure and now requires electronic version of the filing be submitted together with hard copies. This has been done in light of setting up by the AMC of a merger filings data base aimed to facilitate more efficient review of the applications.

Electronic versions of merger filings must be prepared using special software, which is freely available in the official web site of the AMC (www.amc.gov.ua). Lack of electronic version of the filing is a formal basis to reject application due to incompleteness. At the same time, as reported, the AMC promises to be tolerant to availability and correctness of electronic filings in the first few months following introduction of the above changes and while the new system is being tested. However, the AMC will likely strengthen its approach to this requirement afterwards.

We expect the above changes in the procedure will make the filing less flexible and more formalistic. This is mainly because applicants will have to strictly follow the forms suggested by the new system introduced by the AMC and any simplification of the application structure (as often practiced before) would likely become more difficult in such circumstances.

By Andrew Mac, Partner, and Oleg Boichuk, Counsel.

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