20.08.2026
Energy Club sent official appeals to the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Chairman of the Council for Business Support Kyrylo Budanov, and to the Head of the Council’s sectoral energy committee, CEO of JSC “CONCERN GALNAFTOGAZ” Vasyl Danyliak.
The Club calls for an open review of the legal, economic, and energy consequences of the possible removal of paragraph 7 of Section XIV “Final and Transitional Provisions” of Law of Ukraine No. 4888-IX of May 27, 2026, as well as for the formation of a consolidated position among suppliers of electricity, fuel, and other energy resources.
A systemic crisis of legal certainty arose after the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court in 2024 formed an approach according to which 10% was defined as the aggregate limit on the increase in the price per unit of goods over the entire term of a contract.
This approach began to be applied to contracts and additional agreements from 2021–2023, concluded before this judicial practice was formed. On this basis, prosecutor’s offices are filing lawsuits for the recovery of funds, and the exceeding of the aggregate 10% limit is being used in criminal proceedings against officials of customers and representatives of suppliers.
According to estimates by Energy Club and legal companies supporting market participants, at least 3,000 lawsuits have been filed by prosecutor’s offices against electricity suppliers alone that worked with the public sector in 2021–2025. Hundreds of criminal proceedings have also been initiated.
At the same time, the actual dynamics of electricity prices significantly exceeded the 10% corridor established by judicial practice. In each of the periods analyzed — from 2021 to the first half of 2026 — the growth of the market price exceeded 10%, with the average figure standing at approximately 38.6%.
According to Energy Club data, in 2024–2026 the number of winners of electricity procurement procedures decreased by 17%, the average number of participants in open tenders decreased by 25%, and the number of price quotation requests decreased by 46%. Meanwhile, the share of the twenty largest winners grew to 75.4%.
Law No. 4888-IX clarified that the 10% limitation applies to each individual instance of a price increase, without limiting the number of such changes — provided there is a genuine market price fluctuation, proportionality of the change, and no increase in the total amount of the contract.
Paragraph 7 of Section XIV extends the application of this version of the provision to legal relations that arose earlier.
Energy Club emphasizes that this provision does not automatically legalize all additional agreements and does not create immunity from liability. The state retains the ability to prove:
the absence of a genuine market fluctuation; the disproportionality of the price change; the use of unreliable or falsified documents; collusion among procurement participants; a non-market price; actual overpayment or the infliction of real damages.
Paragraph 7 only removes the automatic conclusion of unlawful conduct based solely on the fact that the aggregate price increase over the term of the contract exceeded 10%.
To the appeal to Kyrylo Budanov, Energy Club attached a detailed legal justification. The analysis conducted did not reveal sufficient constitutional, civil-law, or conventional grounds for the removal or narrowing of paragraph 7. In the Club’s view, this provision is consistent with Article 58 of the Constitution of Ukraine and is in line with Article 5 of the Civil Code of Ukraine.
In the appeal to Kyrylo Budanov, the Club proposes, before a final decision is made:
to make public the full text of the draft law prepared by the Ministry of Economy; to conduct a public legal assessment of its compliance with the Constitution of Ukraine, the Civil Code of Ukraine, and relevant national and European judicial practice; to carry out a separate economic and energy assessment of the impact of the proposed changes on competition, the number of procurement participants, the risks of contract termination, the transition of suppliers to a “supplier of last resort,” budget expenditures, and supplier liquidity; to organize an open professional discussion involving state authorities, market representatives, and independent legal and economic experts.
In the appeal to Vasyl Danyliak, Energy Club proposed uniting representatives of the electricity and fuel markets around a common position. In particular, the Club calls for:
bringing the issue before the Council’s sectoral energy committee for consideration; organizing a joint working meeting of suppliers, public-sector customers, professional associations, and experts; forming a consolidated approach of the energy business toward paragraph 7 and possible alternative models of transitional regulation; distinguishing between market-based and formula-based mechanisms of price change; developing unified approaches for regulatory, audit, prosecutorial, and law enforcement bodies; considering the establishment of a permanent expert working group on public procurement of energy resources.
Energy Club is ready to provide the Council with prepared legal and analytical materials, public procurement statistics, information on judicial and law enforcement practice, a concept for a governmental procedure for formula-based pricing, and proposals for the use of official and verifiable price indicators.
Energy Club is convinced that this issue does not concern a separate group of suppliers, but rather the general rules of interaction between the state and business in the energy resource markets. Therefore, the decision should be made only after an open professional discussion and a comprehensive assessment of its legal, economic, and energy consequences.
