On June 22, 2022, the Concept for the Protection and Development of Competition in the Republic of Kazakhstan for 2022-2026 (Concept) was approved by the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan through Decree No. 938. As part of the Concept, the Agency for Protection and Development of Competition of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Agency) plans, among other things, to reform the existing procedures for obtaining antimonopoly approvals for transactions.

The Concept notes the following:

1. Liberalization of economic concentration regulation is being implemented in a non-systematic and non-comprehensive way.
2. The overly broad scope of transactions under current regulation imposes an irrational burden on the antimonopoly authority’s staff, as well as the business environment, reducing investment attractiveness.
3. Existing economic concentration benchmarks the unreasonably large volume of information required for submission, as well as lengthy application review periods reduce the effectiveness of achieving the main supervisory objective—identification of transactions restricting competition.
4. The Russian Federation has a rather positive regulatory experience regarding its exclusion from the scope of transactions to be approved of certain categories of non-oligopolistic facilities operating on markets as well as setting a higher threshold for the book value of assets for those transactions that require approval.

Considering the above, the following legislative changes are planned:

1. A reduction in the number of transactions requiring prior approval,
2. A substantial increase in the thresholds triggering prior approval,
3. A shortened list of necessary documents and an optimization of the procedural time for transaction approval,
4. Following the example of the Russian Federation, to exempt from regulation transactions with certain assets (land plots, buildings, structures, premises/parts of premises, incomplete construction projects which do not have an industrial purpose).

It should be noted that the above changes are at the development stage. We will closely monitor the status of planned changes and will keep you informed of any news. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.