UBA News (#06 June 2016)

UBA News

E-signature & Cryptography

The Ukrainian Bar Association organized a meeting within the “How does IT work?” project on 18 May to discuss the principles of electronic and digital signatures and cryptography.

The meeting was opened by Anatoly Tarasenko, lawyer, NGO E-Democracy. In his opinion, the introduction of e-law faces several problems. One of them is the attitude of the older generation, which is afraid and does not understand innovations. Given the information age, he paid attention to the existence of e-jurisprudence, and gave the example of the register of pre-trial investigations as the only place where records on criminal proceedings are stored.

Volodymyr Flyonts, ProZorro developer and the founder of the NGO E-Democracy, discussed electronic signatures and cryptography. He drew the attention of the audience to the advantages of electronic filing, which enables many artificial bureaucratic obstacles to be overcome. He explained the difference between electronic and digital signatures. According to the expert, a digital signature is more reliable than an e-signature, as it is almost impossible to forge it. Moreover, it allows the identification and protection of documents.

Moreover, he emphasized the risks that may arise from applying digital signatures. In order to eliminate such risks, he advised the use of software that has passed state or any other professional examination, and received a certificate confirming that the program correctly validates digital signatures.

 

Justified Process in Competition Law

On 31 May the UBA Committee on Competition Law held a round table called “Towards principles of a fair process in competition law. Status and prospects”. The keynote question on the agenda was discussion of changes to Ukrainian competition law.

Oleksandr Voznyuk, partner of Asters law firm, explained the reasons for developing the recent draft act. The first reason emerges in practice and includes basic legal conflicts with the Antimonopoly Committee. The second one is observance of basic legal standards under the European Convention on Human Rights.

He also drew attention to the fact that the main innovation of the law should be adversariality of parties in the competition process. The system must ensure a mechanism that is able to eliminate interest on the part of the regulator. He also added that competitiveness and protection of individual rights must be the main elements of the fair competition process. As an example of an effective system, he brought a model that works in some European countries, when the collegial body (arbitrators) which review cases and the unit that removes cases for hearing them, operate in parallel.

Victoria Ptashnyk, MP, member of the parliamentary Committee on Economic Policy, noted that not every judge can consider competition cases because this procedure requires specialist, knowledge and skills in this particular branch of law. She announced changes to the Act On the Status of Judiciary and Status of Judges. She assumed that competitive and unfair competition disputes will be considered by the Higher Court on Intellectual Property. This Act was adopted on 2 June.

The participants also discussed prospects for application of the settlement procedure in the Ukrainian law system. Igor Svechkar, partner and head of Asters’ competition practice, explained the essence of the settlement procedure. This procedure applies when there are complexities in collecting evidence in cartel cases.

At the end of the meeting, all the proposals were heard and a decision made to prepare new proposals to the Draft Act On Amendments to Certain Acts of Ukraine regarding Consideration of Disputes on Violation of Law on Economic Competition Protection.

 

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