APDC: A BRANCH OF KAZTRANSGAZAIMAK JSC WAS FINED FOR PROVIDING FALSE INFORMATION

The Department of the Agency for the Protection and Development of Competition of the Republic of Kazakhstan for the West Kazakhstan Region (hereinafter - the Department), as part of the consideration of the appeal of JSC National Information Technologies regarding the requirements set out in the terms of payment for commercial gas in the contract for the retail sale of commercial gas to the West Kazakhstan Production Branch of the Joint Stock Company KazTransGazAimak (hereinafter – KazTransGazAimak JSC) requests were sent.

In response to the Department's requests, the letters submitted by the branch of KazTransGazAimak JSC provide information that the terms of the contract are the same for all municipal consumers of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

However, it has been established that the branch of KazTransGazAimak JSC provided unreliable and (or) false information to the antimonopoly authority, since during a selective analysis of contracts concluded with utility consumers in some contracts, the requirements are set out in a different wording, that is, the application of different conditions in identical contracts is established.

In this regard, the Department initiated an administrative case under Article 162 of the Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan "On Administrative Offenses" in relation to the branch of KazTransGazAimak JSC upon providing false information to the antimonopoly authority.

By the decision of the Specialized Court for Administrative Offenses of the city of Uralsk, an administrative penalty in the form of a fine in the amount of 5,520,000 tenge was imposed on the branch of KazTransGazAimak JSC.

At the same time, in accordance with part 2 of Article 829-11 of the Administrative Code, the court decided it was possible to reduce the amount of the fine imposed by 30% or up to 3,864,000 tenge.

To date, the fine has been paid in full.