The Supreme Court obliged AMCU to check the largest media groups for abuse
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The Supreme Court ordered the Antimonopoly Committee to consider the company’s statement regarding the abuse of its monopoly position by the largest Ukrainian media groups for the lawsuit of the company “Merezha Lanet”.
About this informs Detector.media with reference to the court decision in case No. 910/13222/21.
Previously, “Lanet” applied to the Antimonopoly Committee with a statement, where it accused the media groups “1+1 media”, “Media Group Ukraine”, StarLightMedia, Inter Media Group of abuses. In particular, in the fact that they jointly introduced the package sale of popular and unpopular programs, coordinated their actions and unilaterally terminated contracts with some providers.
In addition, the company accused the media groups of abusing a collective monopoly, as a result of which they demanded from providers the cost of the tariff package for subscribers.
Then, in March 2021, StarLightMedia and “Media Group Ukraine” announced the termination of the agreement with the provider “Merezha Lanet”, without specifying the reasons for the termination of cooperation. “1+1 Media” and “Inter Media Group” also sent a message to the provider “Lanet Network” about their desire to terminate the contract early.
AMCU noted that the statement of the “Lanet” network did not meet the requirements of the law and contained copies of documents that would confirm the circumstances stated in the statement. The committee refused to consider the application on its merits, so the provider appealed to the Commercial Court, which in January 2022 ruled in favor of “Lanet” and ordered AMCU to conduct an investigation.
In the appeal, this decision was overturned, and on January 19, based on the cassation appeal of “Lanet”, the Supreme Court still obliged the AMCU to consider the complaint against the media groups regarding the abuse of the monopoly position.
As they say in “Lanet”, after receiving the decision of the Supreme Court, the committee should immediately renew the mechanism for considering the application.
In addition, “Lanet” is preparing to file separate lawsuits against each of the four media groups: “1+1 media”, “Media Group Ukraine”, StarLightMedia, Inter Media Group regarding compensation for damages caused by the termination of contracts for broadcasting the channels of their holdings. The company estimated losses of UAH 30 million for all four media groups.
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