Almost EUR 100 million for two record-breaking fines in the pharmaceutical market

On July 31 2025, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) adopted its first decision in recent years concerning a violation of competition law in the pharmaceutical market. As a result of the consideration of the violation, a fine of EUR 49.3 million was imposed on the Limited Liability Company BaDM (BaDM), and a fine of EUR 50.5 million was imposed on a Joint Ukrainian-Estonian Venture in the form of the Limited Liability Company OPTIMA-PHARM, LTD (OPTIMA-PHARM). 

According to the AMCU, both distributors, during a period from March 2020 to December 2023, simultaneously or with a slight time interval, set identical and/or similar sales prices for a number of medicines, which included particularly Spasmalgon, Eucazolin Aqua, Bifren®, Movinaza® and Neuroxon®.

The AMCU classified the actions by BaDM and OPTIMA-PHARM as a violation of the Law of Ukraine "On Protection of Economic Competition", specifically paragraph 1 of Article 50 and part 3 of Article 6, which prohibit anticompetitive concerted practices between undertakings.  

In addition to imposing fines, the AMCU bound both companies to cease the specified violation, which is standard practice under Article 48 of the Law of Ukraine "On Protection of Economic Competition".

These are record-breaking fines for the pharmaceutical market in the entire history of AMCU’s enforcement activities. The parties to the case have the right to appeal the committee's decision in court within two months.

As a reminder, Ukrainian law provides for a fine of up to 10% of the of the annual turnover of a business entity from the sale of products (goods, works, services) for the last reporting year preceding the year in which the fine is imposed for committing anti-competitive concerted actions. In this case, the fines-imposed amount to approximately 3.5% of the annual revenue of each of the defendants for 2024. 

This decision further confirms that the AMCU is actively exercising control over the pharmaceutical market. At the same time, the AMCU continues its comprehensive market research, aimed at analysing the pricing mechanisms for 140 of the most popular drugs, which are sold in the large volumes in the retail (pharmacy) segment. The AMCU's research covers all stages of the sales chain – from the manufacturer to the end consumer (manufacturer-distributor-pharmacy-consumer).

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More news and analytics on the pharmaceutical market and the AMCU's enforcement practices are available via the link.

For additional information or legal advice, please contact our Antitrust and Competition Law Practice team at INTEGRITES.