ARF calls on parliament fellows on delay amending anti-trust law

YEREVAN, April 11, /ARKA/. The opposition Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) party urged today parliament fellows from other factions to delay voting on a draft law drafted to amend the Law on Economic Competition until next parliament session scheduled for May 2-5.

Addressing MPs, Artsvik Minasain from the ARF faction, said not all members of the parliament realized well the entire significance of the proposed changes.

The parliament was to debate in the second reading the proposed changes calling for tougher punishment of monopolies for abuse of their dominating positions. According to Mr. Minasian, all proposed changes are very serious and their consequences if passed may have serious repercussions for any business person.

Minasian also argued that some wordings in the proposed changes need additional explanations because in their current from they can be interpreted differently.

In an interview with Aravot daily last week Artak Shaboyan, chairman of the State Commission for Protection of Economic Competition, said the proposed changes would allow it to quickly and easily detect  violations in the markets. He said  that they would also strengthen the mechanisms to combat the abuses by monopolies. According to him, once  the proposed changes are enacted a new methodology would be used to determine economic entities with dominant position in the market. The new methodology would take into account not only the monopolies’ share in the commodity market, but also their market value and  their  impact on other market participants.

One of the proposed changes allows the government to intervene and set price caps for a number of foods if their prices rise by 30% within one month. The caps would be effective within 90 days.

In the interview Shaboyan said the Commission does  not have sufficient authority now to combat the abuses by monopolies. According to him,  the current legislation has shortcomings and omissions that adversely affect the effectiveness of the Commission’s work. Shaboyan noted also that during one year of his tenure the number of Commission’s decisions punishing companies for unfair competition  has increased  from 3 in 2009  to 54 in  2010.-0-