Ukraine Capacity Building Assistance Program in Competitive Law Enforcement
The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine has launched an international technical assistance program of the United States Agency for International Development (hereinafter - USAID) "Technical Assistance Program for the Development of Ukraine's Institutional Capacity in the Application of Competition Law and in the Implementation of Competition Policy."
This program is implemented by the US Federal Trade Commission (hereinafter - FTC) in accordance with the internal Agreement between the US FTC and the United States Agency for International Development.
The Program is funded by USAID.
The purpose of the Program is to develop the institutional capacity of the AMCU and other authorities in the application of legislation and implementation of competition policy in order to improve the functioning of Ukraine's economy.
The program provides for the following areas of cooperation:
- Long-term advisors - delegating several groups of long-term advisors to the AMCU, consisting of representatives of the FTC and the US Department of Justice, along with representatives of other jurisdictions, including the Competition Bureau of Canada, to share experiences in detecting, investigating, analyzing, and preventing possible Ukrainian competition law violations, providing ad-hoc consultations, assistance to the AMCU in competition advocacy, etc.;
- Short-term advisors - conducting short-term training missions for AMCU employees on competition law in areas identified by the AMCU in conjunction with the FTC, for instance: economic concentrations, competition policy, investigation of violations of competition law in terms of anti-competitive concerted actions;
- Cooperation with other public authorities of Ukraine in order to strengthen their potential in the process of analysis of legislative and regulatory provisions for their compliance with the principles of competition law;
- Involvement of private sector support for the implementation of effective economic policy and bringing Ukrainian competitive law enforcement in line with the recommendations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD);
- Assisting in the improvement of the AMCU software used to process applications for mergers.
The expected results of the Program implementation are increased efficiency of application of competition legislation by the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine in accordance with economic principles and recognized international standards of the OECD and the International Competition Network (ICN), increasing the level of qualification of AMCU employees.