The Department of the Agency for the Protection and Development of Competition (APDC) of Astana has completed an investigation into KTZ-Freight Transportation LLP.
According to the press service of the agency, the company restricted the activities of private freight forwarders, granting advantages to affiliated entities – KTZ Express JSC and KedentransService JSC.
These actions were recognised as an abuse of a dominant position.
Ultimately, the court fined KTZ-Freight Transportation LLP 1.42 billion tenge. The company attempted to appeal the penalty, but the Astana court upheld the first-instance decision.
KTZ-Freight Transportation LLP is a subsidiary of Kazakhstan Temir Zholy (KTZ) NC JSC, which specialises in the organisation and management of freight railway transportation.
For context, in February, the APDC Department for Astana identified instances of monopolistically high prices being set by the subsidiary KTZ — KTZ Express JSC. The company inflated prices for transport and freight forwarding services for military transportation in 2021.
The forwarding commissions set by the enterprise exceeded permissible norms, reaching 30% of the cost of transportation across the country. The Specialised Inter-district Administrative Offences Court imposed a fine of 853,379 tenge on KTZ Express JSC, along with the confiscation of monopoly income amounting to 10 million tenge.
And in March, the APDC identified an anti-competitive agreement between HILL Corporation LLP and KTZ-Freight Transportation LLP. The value of the identified anti-competitive agreement exceeded 12 billion tenge.