OREANDA-NEWS. March 14, 2013. The statement was made by Alexander Kinyov, the Head of Anti-Cartel Department of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) at a workshop organized as part of an extended session of FAS Collegium.

In his presentation that focused on the practice of cartel investigations and other anticompetitive agreements, Alexander Kinyov discussed the most interesting cartel cases, finalized in 2012.

He drew attention of the participants to a trend towards decreasing the number of cases initiated by the Antimonopoly Service under Article 11 (pricing collusions, bid-rigging collusions, market division). “We do not pursue figures in statistics. Cases under Article 11 must not be of mass scale. The goal of the antimonopoly bodies is to move away from petty cases, concentrating on cartels, which truly harm the national economy”, stated Alexander Kinyov.

Alexander Kinyov also outlined the management objectives for 2013, which include:

Increasing cooperation with the law enforcement bodies, in particular, assisting them in completing investigation of some criminal cases under Article 178 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and transferring them to Court; building-up positive judicial practice on cartel cases.

“We must continue to work jointly with the Supreme Arbitration Court on a new version of the ruling of the Plenum of the Supreme Arbitration Court related to cartels. We also plan to develop specific mechanisms, jointly with the Supreme Court and the Ministry of Interior, for enforcement of the norms on criminal prosecution for participating in cartels”, pointed out Alexander Kinyov.