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Russia-Ukraine gas dispute

Kiev decides to fine Russia's Gazprom for $3.4 bln

The watchdog says Gazprom has abused its "dominant position on the natural gas transit market with the use of the main pipelines on the territory of Ukraine"

© Alexander Ryumin/ITAR-TASS

KIEV, January 22. /TASS/. Ukraine’s Antimonopoly Committee has decided to fine Russian company Gazprom for 85 billion hryvnia (about $ 3.4 billion), the committee’s Chairman Yuri Terentyev said on his facebook page.

"Today we have made a decision about the abuse of dominant position on the natural gas transit market with the use of the main pipelines on the territory of Ukraine by Gazprom company as a monopoly buyer. The amount of fines is 85 billion hryvnia,"-Terentyev said.

Ukraine’s Antimonopoly committee conducted an investigation into the monopolistic position of Gazprom on the market for transit and violation of the contract with Naftogaz of Ukraine.

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Earlier, Terentyev wrote that in a letter dated January 13, Gazprom informed the committee that it denied the charges against it, and on January 14 representatives of the Russian company did not attend the hearing.

By the ruling dated April 22, 2015, the Ukrainian government addressed the antimonopoly committee with regard to violations of legislation on economic competition by Gazprom.

Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk said he planned to invite the European Union to jointly investigate the case of Gazprom’s monopoly in the EU and Ukraine. He said that the amount of fine can be up to 10% of the total revenue obtained by Gazprom on the Ukrainian territory. The antimonopoly committee states that in the course of investigation it was revealed that Gazprom has a monopoly position on the market of gas transit through Ukrainian territory, and in 2009-2015 the company "constantly violated the terms of the contract with Naftogaz.

Gazprom has not made any comments on the situation yet.

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Russia-Ukraine Gas Dispute

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