On April 5, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (the AMCU) announced the initiation of an investigation against the Astarta group of companies and Radekhiv Sugar LLC on the grounds of anti-competitive behaviour in the white sugar (beet) primary market.
Liliya Timakina, Director for Legal Issues, ASTARTA:
ASTARTA treats the requests of the Antimonopoly Committee with respect and understanding. The state regulator conducts such investigations regularly, including periods of rising prices for certain products. Last year’s low harvest, as expected, also affected the prices of all food products.
Only in 2020, our Сompany provided comprehensive information in response to 5 official requests from the AMCU and its regional offices with a request to provide relevant information for the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 marketing years, as well as for the periods September – November of 2019 and 2020. After the AMCU officials analysed the documents and explanations provided by us, all issues were resolved.
ASTARTA is a public company and regularly discloses all information to all stakeholders. We are always open to cooperation and ready to provide the state regulator with any documents confirming the absence of violations of the current competition legislation.
I am confident that after we provide clarifications and documents to the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine there will be no objections left. “