OREANDA-NEWS. February 28, 2008. The Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) Igor Artemyev sighed № 54 Order, approving the Regulations on Information Policy of the Antimonopoly Authority, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia. 

The Regulations have been adopted to improve transparency of the FAS Russia's work. It set the rules for disclosing information regarding the activities of the antimonopoly authority. For instance, the document defines which information is public or has restricted access, and how the work with public information is organized.

The Regulations also specify procedures for publishing official FAS Russia's documentation on its web site. The site will contain all decisions and determinations issued by FAS Russia upon processing the petitions and cases on violating the antimonopoly legislation, the state procurement legislation and the advertising legislation, as well as resolutions on initiating administrative proceedings and law suits filed by FAS Russia for violating the legislation. The documents will be published in full, except information constituting commercial secrets or any other legally protected secrets. Confidential information will be removed from the texts in such a way that the overall meaning will not be distorted.

Furthermore, the official FAS Russia site will publish all court rulings on appeals against the FAS Russia's decisions, determinations or resolutions, and the law suits filed by FAS Russia.

FAS Russia is convinced that the new Regulations, which create explicit rules for disclosing information, will make the antimonopoly authority more transparent. "FAS Russia exercises governmental functions essential for the Russian society and economy, - says Igor Artemyev, - Therefore, it is absolutely important that information how we fulfill these functions is available to all citizens, businessmen and legal persons".

The antimonopoly authority has always aspired openness in its work - the Order "On Approving the Regulations on disclosing information regarding the FAS Russia work" was singed as far back as February 2005. Since then, however, the shortcomings of the document have become obvious. The information policy of FAS Russia was lacking consistency and coherence in disclosing information, believes the Head of the antimonopoly authority; now, governed by the new Regulations, the Antimonopoly Service will be able to eliminate the shortcomings in the near future. Besides, "FAS Russia has great respect towards hard and important work of journalists, - emphasized Igor Artemyev, - and we hope that the principles of information policy pledged in the Regulation, which we'll be guided by, will make the media work with the antimonopoly authority easier".