September 6, 2010 - 14:38 AMT
RA antimonopoly body to toughen sanctions against enterprises

Chairman of the State Commission for the Protection of Economic Cooperation (SCPEC) Artak Shaboyan said that SCPEC has developed a bill aimed at increasing the Commission’s efficiency and submitted it to relevant institutions.

The bill focuses on amounts of sanctions applied against enterprises violating the principles of fair competition, Shaboyan told a briefing on August 6.

As a result of SCPEC monitoring, the Commission adopted a decision on sanctions against 13 unfair enterprises dealing with production and sale of ice-cream, meat products and napkins which do not mention production and expiration dates of their products. According to Shaboyan, eight enterprises were fined at the amount of AMD 500,000 each, while 5 enterprises were warned.

Shaboyan agreed that the amount of fines is insignificant as compared with those applied in international practice, thus repeat violation of the law is possible.

“We have developed a bill together with the World Bank that is aimed at increasing the Commission’s efficiency. It was submitted to relevant institutions last week for joint discussions, after which the bill will be submitted to the RA government,” Shaboyan said.