Yesterday there was no space in the session hall of the state commission of state competition. There was a huge number of journalists, commission members, experts, lawyers, representatives of companies, who had gathered in the hall. Everybody was trying have serious faces but some of them couldn’t do that and couldn’t hide their smiles. They were discussing the issue of equal competition on part of the Alex Grig. Let us mention that according to the Article 11 of the law on economic competition unequal competition is considered any entrepreneurship activity, which contradicts the current legislation, violates equality and decent relations in connection to competitors. The next article defines that unequal competition is forbidden in our country. And so the commission has found out that the Alex Grig has competed unequally. In particular, the “Ukraine” label of the vodka produced by this company is confusingly similar to the labels of a Ukrainian company Alek Vinal. The Armenian label Ukraine resembles the Ukrainian “Ukrainian girl,” Khloptsi resembles Khortitsa, Medofein resembles Medoff, Premium resembles the Ukrainian Prime. The vodka “Khlebni Dar” is also confusing, which only has inscriptions in Ukrainian. In the evaluation of the experts of the commission the vodka produced by Alex Grig may cause confusion among the Armenian consumers. It means that the consumer may be cheated by thinking that he’s buying Ukrainian vodka. Let us try to understand why the unhealthy competition is unhealthy in this aspect. We have already mentioned the problems, which may be caused to the consumers but we should also know that the Armenian vodka costs two times less than the Ukrainian. And this is already a big ring in the ear of the consumer that this is not the authentic vodka. Simply said, big efforts should be made to be cheated. As of the competitors then their loss is possible to count in numbers. If in the past month each of the 1000 people bought a bottle of Medofe vodka by thinking that the product belonged to the British Medoff then that company had lost its opportunity of consuming 1000 bottles. Besides that, let’s say 500 out of the 1000 get not to like the vodka. Thus they don’t find out that they have drunk the vodka of Alex Grig and they will never approach either Medoff or Medofe, which means that the British company besides 1000 bottles had also lost potential buyers and it’s going to take quite a time and money to recover this trust among consumers. It is hard to tell how many bottles of vodka the Alex Grig has managed to sell during this period. But it’s hard to believe that they’ve sold less than the fine – 500 thousand AMD. The commission has fined the company in the amount of 500 thousand AMD plus another 500 thousand for not posting information about the activity in the natural oil and sugar market. It was exactly during the voting of this decision when many of the guests couldn’t restrain their smiles. Perhaps the journalists, who’d be elucidating the event will advert to the fact that the defined fine is very little to make the company to compete kindly and equally. No matter to what extent the commission would urge the cease of the consumption of these vodkas they will never disappear from the stores. Having personally understood that their means and efforts cannot have essential effect or influence the chairman of the commission Artak Shaboyan tried to justify that the company was fined in the maximum extent of the law. It means the reason is the legislation. But the most ridiculous thing is that regardless of the laws, the commission and the rest of the institutes all this is just meaningless. First of all it is not quite right to use the expression “confuse the society.” 99% of the people, who buy vodka perfectly differ the fake from the authentic vodka. In Armenia it is hard to find anyone, who wouldn’t know that in Armenia stores sell Zelyonaya Metka resembling the original Zelyonaya Marka. They also know that it costs little; they know who the producer is and the quality. The newly appointed head of the commission complaints that our resources are not enough to exclude all the cases of unhealthy competition and requests the consumers to apply to them. But specially large resources are not necessary for that. All is needed to do is enter a big supermarket and see fake products arranged in a nice order. And so the lack of information is not essential at all. In Armenia they speak a lot about this phenomenon. Moreover, the person, who enters into the shop clearly knows, which of the products he is going to buy. The fake vodka has its buyer and it depends on the pocket of the customer to decide whether he will buy the fake vodka or the original. But if the entrance of a fake product in the market can bring certain profits for several days then everybody later finds out that it’s fake (besides the relevant bodies). And so in the aspect of the business logic it becomes meaningless to sell fake goods. It turns out that the Alex Grig doesn’t receive any profits from the sale of fake vodkas. People just buy these vodkas by knowing that those are produced and bottled here. The next interesting, more accurately to say, petrifying reality is that the vodkas of Alex Grip are not sold covertly, under the walls but quite openly in the supermarkets and the costumers receive receipts when buying those. This reminds us of a joke. One person visits with his friend living in the village. When playing backgammon in the backyard he sees that a man jumps from his roof to the roof of the house of his friend. He goes, “who is this?” “invincible Grish,” says the friend. “Can’t you catch him?” “We can. But why should we? Let him run, alright!” There is the same behavior in regard of vodkas. Everybody knows and has known in the past. But who cares to bother? Moreover, the state is gathering certain taxes from the sale of these vodkas. Everybody was satisfied and happy. Only the businessmen, who were importing original vodkas were dissatisfied. But who would ever dare to raise this issue in the current conditions of Armenia? Nobody. That is the reason why the the lawyer of Alex Grig would complain by saying that the producing company was supposed to apply to the court instead of trying to pressure on them via the government levers. Let us also mention that in any civilized country the reputation of the company would have a greater impact than the amount of the fine. Serious companies are currently spending enormous amount of money to raise their reputation. By imitating from the original vodkas the company proves that its ideological, financial, creative and productive capacity essentially less than of the competitors as they imitate from others. In a normal country this fact would negatively impact on the general consumption of the products of the company. In Armenia this cannot happen because the Armenian society cannot help buying the products of Alex Grig. And so the problem is not within the Alex Grig or any other company but the whole system. And the system functions the way that it mars the logic of the economic laws and rules of the business ethics. And the application of 500 thousand AMD fines in relation to the greatest tax payer of Armenia exposes the amusing elements of the system.
