Laws
(With further amendments and supplements)
Adopted on
November 6, 2000
Law of the Republic of Armenia on Protection of Economic Competition
Chapter 2: Anticompetitive Agreements
ARTICLE 5. ANTICOMPETITIVE AGREEMENTS AND THEIR PROHIBITION1. Within the context of this Law, anticompetitive agreements shall be deemed such transactions signed between economic entities, their agreements, directly or indirectly concerted practices or conduct, and decisions adopted by unions of economic entities (hereinafter “agreements”), which lead or may lead to, directly or indirectly, restriction, prevention or prohibition of competition in any product market, except for the cases stipulated in Part 6 of this Article.
2. Anticompetitive agreements shall refer to:
a) Establishment of discriminatory and/or differentiated sale and/or acquisition prices;
b) Unjustified increase, decrease or maintenance of a product price;
Within the context of this Sub-Clause, unjustified increase of price shall be deemed the increase of a product’s and/or its substitutable products’ price by two or more economic entities during a certain period of time.
Within the context of this Sub-Clause, unjustified decrease of price shall be deemed the decrease of a product’s and/or its substitutable products’ price by two or more economic entities during a certain period of time.
Within the context of this Sub-Clause, unjustified maintenance of a product price shall be deemed the maintenance of the price (including up to 5% change in the price) of a product and/or its substitutable products by two or more economic entities during a certain period of time, in case when the occurrence of certain conditions (factors) could lead or would have led to establishment of lower or higher price.
c) Division of the market according to territorial principle, sale or purchase volumes, product assortment, groups of sellers or acquirers, or otherwise;
d) Impediment to the market entry (restriction of the market entry) of other economic entities, or ousting them out from the market, as a result of which the economic entity did not enter the market or was ousted out from the market or made additional expenses not to be ousted out from the market;
e) Establishment, change or maintenance of discounts or privileges for sale or purchase prices, if they are targeted at ousting other economic entities out from the market;
f) Coming to an arrangement in regard to tender or auction conditions or falsification (distortion) of their results;
g) Offering or applying such conditions which lead or may lead to unequal competitive conditions;
h) Restriction of modernization or development or investments in trade or production of other economic entities;
i) Binding additional obligations to a contract party, including trading objects, which in their nature or implementation aspect are not related to the main subject of the contract;
j) Creation or maintenance of deficit in a product market to the prejudice of consumers’ interests by means of product imports or unjustified contraction of production, or keeping, spoiling and destroying the products.
3. Anticompetitive agreements are signed between:
a) Economic entities (competitors) operating on the same product market (horizontal agreements);
b) Economic entities (non competitors – sellers and acquirers of the product and(or) its mutually substitutable products) with certain interrelation, operating on different product markets (vertical agreement);
4. Anticompetitive agreements shall be deemed proven when:
a) any factual details (including any written document or other written evidence, video or record), or any other evidence not prohibited by the Law, are available;
b) the actions or conduct of economic entities as specified in Part 2 of this Article testify it.
5. Conclusion (establishment) of anticompetitive agreements between economic entities shall be prohibited.
6. Agreements of economic entities aimed at ensuring or enhancing their competitiveness shall not be deemed as anticompetitive if the total share of participants of such agreements does not exceed 20% of the given product market.
7. Prior to signing (coming to) an agreement, the economic entities, in order to receive a conclusion, may apply to the state body for the protection of economic competition (The State Commission for the Protection of Economic Competition of the Republic of Armenia).
(Article 5 was amended by # HO-107-N Law adopted on 22.02.2007)
(Chapter 2 was amended by # HO-107-N Law adopted on 22.02.2007)
