OREANDA-NEWS. October 27, 2011. The Competition Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development held its sessions in Paris, France. Russian delegation was led by Deputy Head of FAS Andrey Tsyganov, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

Representatives of international competition community discussed various issues of competition policy and law and gave presentations on the most pressing issues for the global economy.

On 17th October 2011, OECD “Competition and Regulation” Working Group held a Round Table on excessive pricing. The main questions were: whether excessive prices constitute the violations of the antimonopoly law and whether excessive prices encourage market entry of new companies. In his presentation Andrey Tsyganov talked about Russian practice and approaches used by FAS to determine excessive prices on the markets.

Andrey Tsyganov paid special attention to the measures that can be applied in cases on determining monopolistically high prices. In particular, he emphasized that enforcement of the norms on monopolistically high prices, formulated in the antimonopoly law, does not create legal uncertainly for market participants.

FAS position on possible violations of the law on competition regarding pricing was demonstrated in its decisions on particular cases, legitimacy of which was confirmed by the Supreme Court Instances. It was also demonstrated in course of public discussions of the problems of determining monopolistic prices on the markets of socially important goods (oil products, medicines, fertilizers). The number of antimonopoly cases on monopolistically high prices in the overall number of cases on abusing market dominance is not so high (around 5%), but the absolute number is higher that in other OECD countries.

“We have something to share with our colleagues. The Round Table clearly showed common problems in the basic methodology and specific enforcement practice. One of the most important issues is a choice between market regulation through specific mechanisms of competition and directive price fixing by a particular government regulator. The world-wide practice in this area is very diverse”, said Andrey Tsyganov.