OREANDA-NEWS. On March 23, 2007 the State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted amendments to the Administrative Violations Code (KoAP) tightening sanctions for breaching the antimonopoly legislation after their third reading. In particular, they introduce "penalty on turnover" for abusing dominant positions, cartel collusions and unfair competition, reported the press-centre of  FAS Russia.


Amendments were passed by 421 affirmative votes of the members of the State Duma with one abstention.  Parliamentarians (MPs) approved the draft legislation in the first reading on 1st November 2006 in the second - on 16th March 2007. Originally, the draft amendments proposed by the government introduced penalties for abusing dominant position - from 0,5 to 2%, and for cartel collusion - from 2 to 4% of the company's turnover for the year preceding the breach of the antimonopoly legislation.


However, follow-up discussions with MPs on the draft amendments to the Code have helped define penalty calculation techniques more precisely - now companies involved in unfair business practices that breach antimonopoly legislation will have to pay from 1 to 15% of sales proceeds on the product market where the breach occurred. Moreover, the draft amendments propose "penalty on turnover" for unfair competition related to introduction of products that involved illegal use of intellectual property. Also, for the first time the Russian legislation has introduced leniency provisions on revoking punishment for the companies that voluntarily stop participating in competition restricting agreements or concerted actions and cooperate with the antimonopoly authority in investigating such violations. In near future the draft law will be forwarded to the Council of the Federation for consideration.