OREANDA-NEWS. April 03, 2012. “With adopting the “third antimonopoly package”, the concept of “cartel” is introduced to the antimonopoly law”, said the Head of FAS Cartel Department, Alexander Kinyov, speaking at the All-Russian Research-to-Practice Conference at Moscow State University. “For the next three - four years combating cartels remains the main priority of our work”, pointed out Mr. Kinyov, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

Alexander Kinyov said that in the new law cartels are prohibited “per se” – law enforcement officers will have to prove only a fact of a prohibited agreement and there will be no need to prove that the agreement resulted in restricting competition.

Mr. Kinyov also stated that FAS would propose to discuss legislative novelties on anticompetitive agreements to the Federal Law “On Operational Investigative Activities” and to the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation.

In comparison with 2010, in 2011 the number of cases initiated under Article 11 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition was reduced by 21%. “It happened due to exposing large-scale penetration of anticompetitive agreements into different sectors of the economy, and also because economic entities now give more care to observing the antimonopoly law”, concluded Mr. Kinyov.

Anyone can report a cartel to the antimonopoly body through a special form on the official web-site of FAS Russia - www.fas.gov.ru or on a specialized web-site - www.anticartel.ru. A cartel also can be reported by calling on a hot line number, given on the above sites.