OREANDA-NEWS. April 15, 2010. Call Series on Criminalization within the frameworks of the ICN Cartel Working Group took place, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

This discussion became final in a number of Call Series on current tendencies in anti-cartel activity at the international level, in which the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) participated as a key speaker along with Japanese and French competition authorities.

The representatives of the Anti-Cartel Department and the Department for International Economic Cooperation of the FAS Russia took part in the Call Series.
Jurisdiction's prosecution of hard-core cartel conduct and use of criminal sanctions, connection between criminal penalties and administrative liability measures that might be imposed on companies or individuals, interaction between competition authorities and public prosecutors under competition legislation enforcement, impact of economic crisis on application of criminal sanctions became major issues that participants discussed during this Call Series.

Representatives of the FAS Russia informed about amendments to the Article 178 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, application of criminal sanctions for the antimonopoly legislation violation and about reaction of the Russian business community and private bar to the adoption of this article, as well as presented their position regarding the criteria that should guide the adoption or strengthening criminal sanctions for participation in the cartel. Moreover, specialists of the Russian antimonopoly authority responded to a number of questions raised during the call.

Participation in the ICN Working Groups allows to improve the Russian competition policy through harmonization with international legal norms and to use most efficiently ICN Members legislation enforcement practices to achieve the best practical results in implementation of competition policy at both national and international levels.

In turn, the experience of the FAS Russia on implementation of competition legislation can be extremely useful for those countries which are currently in the process of amending their national competition legislation.