OREANDA-NEWS. March 27, 2013. “The Moscow Times” Legal Forum took place in Moscow. The Head of the Legal Department of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) Sergey Puzyrevskiy took part in the Forum; he discussed implementation of the third antimonopoly package and amendments adopted when the package came into force.

“In 2013 FAS issued around 1423 warnings, of which over 1000 – approximately 75% – were executed. The violations related mainly to refusals to conclude contracts. And we do not exclude that this institute can be extrapolated to other forms of abuses”, said Sergey Puzyrevskiy.

Discussing the institute of disqualification of public service workers, Sergey Puzyrevskiy pointed out “This institute should be actively introduced into practice since it’s the only way to ensure compliance of government officials with the antimonopoly law. He emphasized that disqualification is a tough but very efficient measure.

The forum also discussed the system of calculating fines. “We introduced considerable turnover fines and we now see the results. Previously, the issue of compliance or non-compliance with the antimonopoly law was looked at in terms of economic benefits to an economic entity. Introduction of fines in the size of 15% of companies’ annual turnover means there are no and there will be no such benefits. The sanctions from 1% to 15% of companies’ turnover allow to make decisions on the case-by-case basis, taking into account all, mitigating and aggravating, circumstances”, stated Sergey Puzyrevskiy.