OREANDA-NEWS. February 21, 2012. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) and the Competition Authority of the Republic of France (Autorite de la concurrence) signed a Memorandum of Understanding, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

The Memorandum was signed during a visit of a Russian delegation to Paris to take part in the meetings of the Global Forum and the Competition Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

On the Russian side the document was signed by Deputy Head of FAS, Andrey Tsyganov, and on the French side – by the President of the Competition Authority of the Republic of France, Bruno Lasserre.

The Memorandum was signed on an important date for the French side – 25th anniversary of founding an independent government body – the Competition Council, in 2009 replaced by the Competition Authority.

The Memorandum provides for exchanging non-confidential information, work experience on the issues of developing competition policy and investigating cases on violating competition law, organizing joint events, trainings and expert consultations.

Signing the first joint document by French Competition Authority and FAS Russia forms the basis for further strengthening and development of Russia- France cooperation in the field of competition policy and raises relations to a new level.

“Continual professional contacts between the antimonopoly bodies of Russia and France started in the first half of 1990s. Now FAS endeavours to develop new forms of cooperation aimed at joint investigations of violations of competition law, especially suppressing cartels, and we hope for productive cooperation in this field with our French colleagues”, emphasized Deputy Head of FAS, Andrey Tsyganov.

Reference:

The Competition Authority of the Republic of France (Autorite de la concurrence) is an independent body formed in 2009 from the Competition Council, and acts on behalf of the state. The Competition Authority is not subordinate to the Government. The President of the Competition Authority is elected for five years; the current President is Bruno Lasserre.

The Competition Authority acts on the basis of complaints filed to the Authority, or upon one’s own initiative. It is competent to apply the national law and the law of the European Union.

The Competition Authority has the powers to issue determinations, imposing financial functions, determine obligations for participants of economic activities to terminate unlawful practices, mitigate punishment for the companies that cooperate with the antimonopoly bodies towards exposing cartels. The Competition Authority also controls mergers (earlier this function was exercised by the Ministry of Economics).

The Code of Commerce (Le Code de commerce) gives the Competition Authority the powers to impose a fine up to 10% of the company’s turnover (Article L. 464-2 of the Code of Commerce). Criteria of the fine size include: severity of anticompetitive actions, damages inflicted upon the economy, the company position and recidivism of unlawful actions. The fine cannot be given to “victims” of anticompetitive actions, and must be transferred to the public treasury. Sanctions imposed by the Competition Authority reflect damages to the economy in general rather than losses incurred by the parties. To recover their losses the parties can bring a court action.

The Competition Authority publishes its decisions to enhance publicity in order to inform the companies in a particular sector and the general public about dangers of unlawful behavior. The Competition Authority also provided consultation upon requests from the Parliament, the Government, local authorities, professional organizations, or consumer associations, and can express its position and make recommendations on all issues concerning competitive environment.