This presentation introduces the key recommendations made by the OECD in its report launched in Astana on 25 May 2016. Access the full report page http://www.oecd.org/daf/competition/competitionlawandpolicyinkazakhstan2016.htm

1. Competition Law and Policy in
Kazakhstan
Launch of the report – Astana, 25 May 2016
Key findings from the OECD Report

2. Kazakhstan underwent its peer review at the OECD Global
Forum on Competition in 2015 which was attended by
almost 90 delegations from around the world.
This presentation introduces the key recommendations
made by the OECD in its report launched in Astana
on 25 May 2016.
Background
For many years, OECD competition law and
policy peer reviews have proved to be a
valuable tool for countries, whether OECD
members or not, to reform, strengthen, and
improve their competition frameworks.
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3. • Focus enforcement exclusively on practices that harm
competition;
• Improve detection tools and apply a more stringent
standard to prove collusive practices;
• Encourage the abolishment of the State Register for
Dominant Undertakings;
• Focus on unilateral or co-ordinated merger effects and
move to a more effects based analysis of mergers;
• Incorporate basic legal rights into the procedural rules,
to increase overall transparency of proceedings;
• Align the competition law framework with EAEU
standards in order to rectify many of
the current weaknesses.
Key Recommendations
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4. Enforcement must be focused exclusively on
practices that harm competition.
The review also advises improved detection tools
and a more stringent standard to prove collusive
practices. Vertical restraints should be considered
under a rule of reason approach.
Restrictions relating to intellectual property
rights should be assessed under the general
framework of exemptions instead of being
treated as a separate, excluded, category of
agreements.
The review also recommends the clarification of
legal terms to ensure full comprehension and
minimize risk of misinterpretation.
1. Restrictive agreements and
concerted practices
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5. Kazakhstan is encouraged to abolish the State
Register for Dominant Undertakings.
Identification of dominant undertakings should be
based on an economic analysis of market structures
as well as an analysis of the effects of alleged abuses
and not merely on the basis of market share as is the
currently the case.
The authority should shift focus from price and profit
controls to control of exclusionary practices.
2. Dominance and monopolisation
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6. As in dominance and monopolisation, the authority
should move to a more effects based analysis of
mergers and should focus on unilateral or
co-ordinated merger effects.
The authority should publish its merger decisions in
order to give guidance and provide legal certainty to
the business community. Conditions and obligations
should whenever possible be based on structural
measures.
3. Concentration Control
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7. The enforcement process is not transparent and is
incoherent with an overall commitment to the rule of law.
The undertakings involved in the authority’s proceedings
are not granted the right to be heard or an access to file.
• The OECD strongly recommends incorporating basic
legal rights into the procedural rules, to increase the
overall transparency of the proceedings.
• Legal deadlines should be extended to enable a better
legal and economic analysis.
4. Institutional and procedural aspects
and international co-operation
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8. • Court review procedures suffer from a lack of
sufficiently trained or specialised judges and extremely
short deadlines.
• Courts should be either specialised or cases should at
least be concentrated on a few generalist judges.
• Kazakhstan should consider removing the competition
authority from the Ministry of National Economy and
establishing it as an independent state authority in
order to minimize the risk of conflict of interest and
undue influence.
• As a member of the EAEU, Kazakhstan is obligated to
align its competition law framework with EAEU
standards which should rectify many of the current
weaknesses.
Institutional and procedural aspects and
international co-operation (Cont’)
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