The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine insists that the government relaxes the requirements to selecting auditors of large state-owned enterprises (SOE), as the requirements outlined in government resolution No. 390 dated 2015 are discriminative.

"Their application results in the creation of additional obstacles for entering the market, narrowing the circle of audit companies that could be involved in audit of SOE," the committee said.

The committee said that along these requirements is availability of at least 100 employees directly involved in the provision of audit services in an audit firm and annual income of at least UAH 30 million in the past three years.

The committee said referring to data from the Audit Chamber that six audit firms out of 1,200 firms present on the market meet the requirements set by the government for audit of largest SOE.

The committee said that for audit of large SOE the minimum annual income of an audit firm in the past three years must be UAH 3 million, and only 20 companies on the Ukrainian market meet this requirement.

The committee said that Infrastructure Ministry used the right to expand the requirements for selecting auditors and narrowed competition to three companies.

The antimonopoly committee said that the government resolution has resulted in growth of market shares of some players in the past several years, which would affect the audit service market in general.

The committee said that an attempt of market players to challenge this government resolution in March 2017 in administrative court failed.