KIEV — Ukraine’s anti-monopoly committee said Thursday that it started an investigation into Altimo Holdings & Investments, controlled by Alfa Group, after it failed to give information about the scope of its activities in Ukraine.
“Such illegal acts of Altimo hamper the committee from completing its review” of an earlier decision allowing Telenor and Alfa to merge their Ukrainian assets in new mobile operator VimpelCom Ltd., the regulator said in a statement.
Altimo said it could not immediately comment on the investigation.
The committee also initiated an investigation into Crown Finance Foundation and CTF Holdings, which are also part of Alfa Group, after they took control of TOV Astelit, Ukraine’s third-largest mobile operator, without the regulator’s permission, the statement said.
There is concern about the “concentration of Ukraine’s mobile market in the hands of one operator,” Oleksiy Kostusev, head of the state committee, said in the statement.
(Bloomberg)
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