OREANDA-NEWS. March 11, 2010. The amendments to the antimonopoly legislation, devised by FAS Russia, include three groups: first - technical amendments aimed at improving the existing norms; second - observations made by international experts of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development; and third - reasonable proposals of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. It was announced by Igor Artemyev, the Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) on 4th March 2010 at a joint session of FAS Russia and "Promoting Competition" Non-Commercial Partnership, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

The amendments to the antimonopoly law clarify:

- The concept of a group of persons;

- The procedures for establishing the Rules of non-discriminatory access to the markets;

- The concept of coordination of economic activity;

- The concept of agreements and concerted actions;

- Special considerations on selecting financial organizations, etc.

The amendments change liability for bid-rigging collusion. "Turnover' fines cannot be used here; most probably, the fines should be calculated on the basis of the original contract price", believes Mr. Artemyev.

FAS Russia proposes to introduce to concept of mitigating and aggravating factors to the law for calculating the fines for antimonopoly violations. For instance, a fine can be reduced due to such circumstances when the violator:

- Did not initiate competition-restricting agreements or concerted actions and (or) was obligated to execute the instructions for participating in the agreements or actions in question;

- Did not start executing the competition-restricting agreement;

- Executed a determination on the antimonopoly case issued by the antimonopoly authority before the proceedings on the case were completed;

- Admitted in writing violations of the statutory norms prohibiting such conduct, stopped the violations and assisted the antimonopoly authority in its investigations, etc.

"We would like to introduce caution instruments, such as are used by the law enforcement bodies. If the elements of violations have not been established yet and FAS Russia has not initiated a case, perhaps we can pass a warning to the responsible government officials on inadmissibility of the actions that violate the antimonopoly law, instead of initiating the case and imposing a fine upon them", thinks Mr. Artemyev.

The amendments clarify that if abusing market dominance has not restricted competition and instead resulted in infringing the rights of particular counteragents, the punishment should be a fixed rather than a "turnover" fine (ranging from 300,000 to 1 million Rubles). "These are the so-called "summer residents" cases, when the company can be imposed several "turnover" fines for not connecting a couple of summer residents to the network: a separate fine for each case. Such practice must be avoided. We do not have an intention to bankrupt companies", said the Head of FAS Russia.

"We propose to introduce amendments to the law that will spell out possibilities for fine payment on deferred terms under certain conditions", trusts Mr. Artemyev.

"We intend to modify No. 108 Order of FAS Russia in the part relating to market analysis. To a considerable degree the Order became obsolete. We believe there is no need to analyze the market for the cases against the authorities, on violations of Article 17.1 the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition", stated Igor Artemyev.

The Head of FAS Russia informed members of "Promoting Competition" Non-Commercial Partnership that he had asked the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to instruct the Main Legal Department of the Executive Office of the President of RF and FAS Russia to devise amendments to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation about automatic relief from criminal liability of those persons that wish to take advantage of the leniency programme for participation in cartels.

"Today a person that voluntarily reported to FAS Russia about taking part in cartel arrangements, presented evidence of a cartel collusion and refused to participate in it, can be relieved from administrative liability - a "turnover" fine. However, the law does not provide for automatic relief from criminal liability. Therefore businessmen are scared to approach FAS Russia and voluntarily disclose information regarding cartels", expressed his concern Igor Artemyev.

Reference:
Article 17.1. of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition" - "Specific procedures for the contracts for state and municipal property".