OREANDA-NEWS. April 08, 2009. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) and the "Promoting Competition" Non-Commercial Partnership discussed the amendments to the "second antimonopoly package" at their joint meeting, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.   

In the introductory speech, Igor Artemyev, the Head of FAS Russia informed that the Antimonopoly Service gave due consideration to the suggestions made by the Non-Commercial Partnership at the last meeting. Mr Artemyev pointed out that some of those proposals were included to the "second antimonopoly package" introduced to the State Duma of the Russian Federation.

FAS Russia proposed the following improvements to the antimonopoly legislation:

1) Clarifying the scope of application of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition" to the transactions concluded and actions exercised outside the Russian Federation if those actions influence the level of competition in Russia;

2) Clarifying the provisions of the Law that forbid anticompetitive agreements. Providing concrete definitions of the prohibitions of "horizontal" and "vertical agreements";

3) Clarifying the provisions of the Law on the procedures for providing state and municipal preferences;

4) Defining the procedures for inspections of compliance with the antimonopoly legislation organized by the antimonopoly bodies;

5) Increasing the thresholds of entities' assets (or their group of persons)or turnover for the purposes of control over economic concentration (preliminary approval of the aggregate value of the buyer's assets exceeds 7 billion Rubles (currently 3 billion Rubles) or the turnover of such a person exceeds 10 billion Rubles (в настоящее время 6 billion Rubles));

6) Introducing disqualification for state and municipal officers;

7) Improving the machinery of criminal liability for violations of the antimonopoly legislation (Article 178 of the Criminal Code of the Rususian Federation); etc.

The discussion at the meeting was mostly devoted to the leniency programme and the parameters for relieving liability for voluntary reporting about a competition-restrictive agreement.

The experts of the "Promoting Competition" Non-Commercial Partnership drew attention of the FAS Russia's senior executive officers to some legal technicalities of that amendment.

The Head of FAS Russia paid special attention to determining parameters of the rules of non-discriminatory access to the goods and services produces (provided) by the natural monopolies. In accordance with the amendments formulated by FAS Russia, the principles of the Federal Law on state procurement will be applicable to natural monopolies and state-run corporations. The Law introduced mandatory tenders for procurements the goods and services for the organizations' own needs.

Igor Artemyev expected the "second antimonopoly package" to be considered by July 2009 and after than FAS Russia would start the work on the so-called "third antimonopoly package", focusing on natural monopolies.

In his speech, Eugene Voevodin, the Chairman of the General Council of the "Promoting Competition" Non-Commercial Partnership responded that adopting the "second antimonopoly package" would be an opportune act under the current economic situation. He also informed representatives of the Antimonopoly Service that the Non-Commercial Partnership had already formed a working group on improving the legislation on natural monopolies.

Mr Voevodin also told that the "Promoting Competition" Non-Commercial Partnership had organized a meeting with representatives of businesses, lawyers and economists to discuss the "Practice and problems of enforcement of the Federal Law "On Procedures for Foreign Investments in the Business Entities of Strategic Importance for Russian National Defence and State Security"; at the meeting the decision was made to form a working group.

In his turn, Igor Artemyev expressed his hope for fruitful work in those areas and possibility to discuss those issues at the nearest joint meetings.

Participants unilaterally concluded that taking into account the comments made at the meeting, it would be necessary to discuss them in more detail at the nearest meeting, which is preliminary scheduled for 23rd April 2009.

In conclusion, the Head of FAS Russia awarded several colleagues from the Non-Commercial Partnership the certificates of honor for their considerable personal contribution to the development of the antimonopoly legislation. Igor Artemyev said: "FAS Russia highly appreciates the work done and hopes for further effective cooperation".