OREANDA-NEWS. On July 03, 2009 the State Duma of the Russian Federation approved amendments to the draft Law "On Introducing Amendments to the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition" in the second and third readings, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia. 

"We appreciate it that the members of the parliament found a possibility to consider the amendments to the Law before the end of the spring session", said Igor Artemyev, the head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service.

"The adopted amendments will help us investigate cartel collusions, suppress abusing dominant position and oppose the authorities granting unlawful preferences to individual companies", - explained the Head of FAS Russia.

According to the amendments, the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) will be able, under certain conditions, to recognise a company as dominant, if its share on the relevant goods market is less than 35% and exceeds the shares of other economic entities on this goods market, but that company can exercise a dominant influence on the general conditions of the goods circulation on the goods market.

The draft Law also clarifies the concept of "monopolistically high" and "monopolistically low" goods prices. According to the draft Law, monopolistically high price of the goods is the price fixed by an economic entity that has dominant position if the price exceeds the sum of necessary costs of goods production and distribution and profit, and the price that has formed under competitive conditions on the comparable goods market in the Russian Federation or on external markets.

Monopolistically high price of the goods can not be recognised if it is achieved through innovative activities: activities resulted in developing a new product that does not have substitutes, or developing a new substitute product and reducing its production costs and (or) improving its quality.

The draft Law also provides for:

- Using both the "cost plus" method (estimating the sum of necessary costs of goods production and distribution and profit) and the "comparable markets" method (comparison with the price fixed on a comparable market under competitive conditions) to determine monopolistically high price of the goods;

- Harmonising the procedures for inspections of compliance with the antimonopoly legislation, organised by the antimonopoly bodies, with No.294-FZ "On Protecting the Rights of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs in Exercising State Control (Supervision) and Municipal Control";

- Organising unscheduled inspections without prior notification of the inspected persons in order to improve efficiency of discovering competition-restricting agrements (cartels);

- Introducing notification procedures for transactions within a group of persons, integrated under a "structural" principle" (a person owns more than 50% of the total voting shares (stocks) in the equity (joint-stock) capital of a company or partnership);

- Establishing the right of the antimonopoly bodies to issue determinations for selling a particular amount of goods through a commodity exchange, and preliminary agreement with an antimonopoly body on characteristics of setting the reserved price for the goods when the goods are sold through a commodities exchange in accordance with the procedures established by the Government of the Russian Federation;

- Establishing the 3-year period of limitation for initiating cases for violating the antimonopoly legislation and carrying out legal proceedings.