Ukraine Competition Law: Key H1 2026 Developments

July 2026 – Ukraine’s competition law landscape saw several key developments during the first half of 2026, with the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMC) continuing to focus on merger controls, procedural enforcement and broader policy reforms. The key takeaways from this period include high-level AMC merger-control activity, growing gun-jumping enforcement, continued liability for information-related infringements, and an emerging interaction between competition law and national security-oriented screening discussions.

AMC results for 2025

In March 2026, the AMC presented the results of its work for 2025, confirming a marked increase in merger-control activities and presenting a broader picture of an authority that remains active and operational despite wartime pressures. According to the available figures, the AMC processed 1,315 merger-related filings in 2025, including applications for preliminary conclusions; it also accepted 1,140 notifications for review, and ultimately granted 811 merger clearances. This level of activity affirms that the Ukrainian merger control field remains a significant component of transaction planning.

The data also points to several sectors attracting particular attention – this includes fuels, pharmaceuticals, digital markets, financial services and defence-related activities. In particular, the volume of filings (600) in the fuel sector illustrates the importance of careful filing strategies in multi-asset transactions; while the AMC’s growing attention towards digital and defence-related markets suggests an increasing focus on strategically sensitive sectors.

Merger control remains active and highly procedural

In practical terms, the merger control field in Ukraine remains formalistic and document-heavy. Parties still need to properly allocate time not only for a statutory review period, but also for document collection, ownership disclosure, sanctions-related checks and also factor-in the risk that a filing may be returned as incomplete if the authority identifies shortcomings in a submission.

In cross-border transactions, parties should also be cautious about assuming that carve-outs or hold-separate structures will resolve applicable Ukrainian filing issues – in fact, the AMC does not generally accept such arrangements where the transaction as a whole results in a notifiable concentration. Another point to keep in mind is that ancillary restraints are not treated as automatically covered by merger clearance decisions, meaning that a separate competition analysis may still be required for non-compete and similar clauses.

At the same time, the merger control regime remains threshold-based and does not currently entrust the AMC with general call-in powers over below-threshold transactions. Although still giving businesses a degree of predictability, it does not, however, reduce the need for early jurisdictional analysis for deals involving Ukrainian assets, turnover, or local activities.

Gun-jumping remains a material enforcement risk

One of the clearest enforcement trends is the AMC’s continued focus on gun-jumping. The authority has increasingly pursued failures to obtain prior clearance before implementation, including through ex officio investigations, which means that the risks are not limited to cases where parties self-report a completed transaction after closing. The number of gun-jumping cases has increased steadily, rising from 17 in 2022 up to 69 in 2025. The maximum fine in 2025 totalled approx. EUR 204,000.

An important nuance, however, is that recent court-driven developments have evidently influenced the AMC’s approach to the calculation of imposed fines. In particular, the authority’s more recent practice suggests a move away from automatic reliance on the respective wider group’s turnover and towards the financial results of the infringing entity itself – although the group entities directly involved in the given infringement may still be taken into account.

Information requests can create standalone liability

Another practical point concerns information-related violations before the AMC. In 2025, the authority imposed 76 fines for such infringements, including 56 for failures to provide information within the specified deadline, 10 for the provision of incomplete information, and 10 for the provision of inaccurate information. The highest fine imposed in this category totalled EUR 168,450.

Under Ukrainian competition law, the submission of late, incomplete or inaccurate responses to information requests can constitute standalone infringements, including in merger control proceedings, antitrust investigations and other forms of contact with the authority.

For cross-border groups, a particularly important issue concerns the scope of the Ukrainian entity’s apparent legal duty to produce documents held elsewhere in the corporate group. Recent court practice has affirmed that this duty is not unlimited: a recipient may legitimately argue that it does not possess the requested information and has no legal ability to obtain it from foreign affiliates. That said, the safest course is undoubtedly not silence or selective production, but a clear, professionally written response, submitted within the applicable deadline, and ideally combined with an extension request where justified.

National security in competition enforcement

Looking ahead, broader international discussions, including recent OECD paper on national security considerations in competition enforcement, point to a growing interaction between competition policy, economic security and investment screening. The OECD’s main message at present is that national security concerns should be assessed by competition authorities only where they can be expressed through established competition law tools, while broader strategic concerns should be addressed by governments or specialised bodies.

National security considerations are currently addressed in practice by the AMC chiefly through sanctions screening during merger reviews. In particular, the authority reviews the ownership structures and ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs) of the notifying parties for links to sanctioned persons, or to the Russian Federation or Belarus. Ukrainian law then prevents the authority from granting clearances where this would conflict with applicable sanctions legislation.

This debate is relevant for Ukraine in light of its ongoing competition-law reform efforts, the strategic importance of sectors such as energy, digital markets and defence, and the broader EU alignment agenda. The OECD’s approach supports the idea that national security issues should be handled through dedicated mechanisms rather than being absorbed into competition law analysis.

FDI screening outlook in Ukraine

Beyond this, Ukraine is currently debating two competing draft laws on FDI screening, but neither is expected to be adopted in the near future. At the same time, recent public discussions suggest ongoing work on the broader design of a future FDI screening regime, with the defence sector likely to occupy a particularly prominent place in that framework. Reportedly, the emerging concept will follow an EU-style differentiated approach, under which some investments would be subject to stricter screening and others to a lighter-touch regime.

The sectors evidently being contemplated for screening include defence, critical infrastructure, subsoil use, electronic communications, information protection and media. The model under discussion also potentially envisages three forms of review: a prior authorisation regime for defence-sector investments, a notification-based regime for other covered transactions, and retrospective screening in certain cases.

Taken together, these developments suggest that transactions involving strategic industries or sensitive technologies may gradually face a denser regulatory environment in Ukraine, extending beyond traditional merger control analysis alone. For businesses operating in Ukraine, this means that early engagement with Ukrainian competition law advisers is increasingly important, particularly for transactions in strategic sectors or those involving sensitive technologies.

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