OREANDA-NEWS. March 15, 2013. The State Duma of the Russian Federation approved in first reading the draft law on abolishing notification control by the Federal Antimonopoly Service for certain economic concentration transactions. The voting was unanimous: for the draft Law – 441, against - 0, abstained - 0.

Changes to the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” abolish notification control for transactions related to formation of commercial organizations as a result of mergers of commercial organizations and acquisitions of one or several commercial organizations by a commercial organization if the total asset value according to the recent balance sheets or the total revenue of organizations from selling goods in the calendar year preceding the merger year exceeds 400 million Rubles.

The draft Law abolishes control for transactions that form a financial organization or acquisitions by a financial organization if the total asset value according to the recent balance sheets of the financial organizations taking part in a transaction does not exceed the value specified by the Government of the Russian Federation.

Notification control is abolished for buying shares, rights or property if the total asset value according to the latest balance sheet or the total revenue from selling goods of a person (a group of persons), acquiring them, and a person (a group of persons) selling them exceeds 400 million Rubles and the total asset value of these persons under the latest balance sheet exceeds 60 million Rubles.

The draft Law also eliminates control over buying shares (stock) rights and (or) assets of a financial organization if its asset value according to the last balance sheet exceeds the value set by the Government of the Russian Federation. It abolishes control over acquiring of a financial organization by a commercial organization if the asset value of a financial organization according to the last balance sheet exceeds the value specified by the Government.

Now FAS approval is required only for transactions completed by the companies whose total asset value exceeds 7 billion Rubles and the annual revenue exceeds 10 billion Rubles. Other transactions do not significantly affect competition and their approvals constitute an administrative barrier for businesses.

“I am glad that the Government and the State Duma supported us because I am convinced that abolishing notification control of the Antimonopoly Service over a number of transactions will remove excessive administrative barriers for business. That is why we came up with this proposal”, pointed out the Head of FAS Igor Artemiev.

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Notification control over economic concentration transactions (actions) is not very efficient: in 2011 the antimonopoly bodies considered 2124 notifications but issued determinations only in 14 cases.