OREANDA-NEWS. June 26, 2012. A delegation of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia), led by the Head of FAS Igor Artemyev, took part in an International Conference on the “Role of Antimonopoly Policy in Economic Development”, coinciding with 20th anniversary of establishing the antimonopoly authority of the Azerbaijan Republic, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia. 

Igor Artemyev pointed out that since the time of his last visit to Baku in 2007 the city had flourished, becoming a striking reflection of achievements in economic growth of Azerbaijan, economic modernization, and development of non-energy sector. In his address to the Conference, the President of Azerbaijan Ikham Aliev emphasized that recent economic achievements in the Republic is the result of the efforts towards developing market economy, structural reforms, preventing unreasonable price increase, protecting consumer rights. Azerbaijan is improving the antimonopoly law, which creates further prerequisites for economic development in the Republic.

At the Conference, Igor Artemyev made a presentation on “Modern Antimonopoly Regulation in the Russian Federation”.

He informed Conference participants about the main areas of FAS efforts, the work towards improving competition law, in particular, coming into force the “third antimonopoly package” in January 2012, adopting which became possible through support of the country’s top leadership. Igor Artemyev also discussed practical aspects of FAS work, drawing attention to considerable fines applied in Russia, in particular, the fines imposed upon oil companies - around US \\$650 millions. Mr. Artemyev also talked about priority areas of FAS work, such as combating cartels, as well as violations committed by the authorities, against which Russian antimonopoly bodies every day pass around 200 decisions to impose sanctions.

The Head of FAS also informed Conference attendees about the main areas of FAS work in the field of international cooperation, in particular, due to development of Unified Economic Space of the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation, the efforts undertaken under the framework of the Interstate Council on Antimonopoly Policy, as well as development of cooperation with competition authorities of other countries, one of the aspects of which is cooperation in investigating particular cases of violations of competition law.