OREANDA-NEWS. On January 27, 2009 the Presidium of the Government of the Russian Federation approved the draft Federal Law "On Introduction Amendments to Article 178 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation", formulated by the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) jointly with the Russian Ministry of the Interior and the Russian Ministry of Economic Development, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

"Punishments for violating the antimonopoly legislation must be inevitable". This position was expressed by Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation at the meeting of the Presidium of the Government of the Russian Federation. Commenting on the amendments to the Criminal Code, which introduce criminal liability for the antimonopoly violations, Vladimir Putin said that punishments must be inevitable for all those who virtually "pick consumers' pickets, for those who use forbidden methods".

The new version of Article 178 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is one of the major initiatives of the "second antimonopoly package", which the Government of the Russian Federation forwarded, as established by law, for consideration by the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation on 11th January 2009.

FAS Russia has devised the draft Law with the aim to enforce the principle of inevitability of punishment for the antimonopoly violations injurious to public, as well as to ensure practical application of Article 178 by the law enforcement bodies.

The draft Law institutes criminal liability for preventing, restricting or eliminating competition by concluding competition-restrictive agreements or engaging in competition-restrictive concerted actions, repeated abuse of dominant position by fixing and maintaining monopolistically high or monopolistically low goods prices, unreasonable refusal or evasion from singing contracts, and restricting market entry, if such actions inflicted heavy damage upon physical persons, organizations or the state, or resulted in deriving grand revenue. According to the draft Law, heavy damage means damages exceeding one million Rubles, and grand revenue means revenue exceeding five million Rubles.

Under Clause 4 of the Notes to the proposed version of Article 178 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, repeated violations means committing more that two such actions within three years, for which a person was made administratively liable.

As stated by Igor Artemyev, the Head of FAS Russia, "Adopting the new version of the Federal Law will help increase efficiency of preventing and suppressing cartel agreements and other illegal monopolistic activities".