OREANDA-NEWS. April 19, 2013. The Eurasian Economic Commission organized an international research-to-practice conference in Kazan to discuss the draft Model Competition Act. The conference was addressed by Deputy Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia), Anatoly Golomolzin, and Deputy Head of FAS Legal Department, Denis Gavrilov.

Representatives of antimonopoly bodies, business communities, academia and integration associations of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation took part in the conference.

The goal of the conference was to discuss the draft Model Competition Act with general public due to special significance of this legislative act, aimed at approximating legal regulation of economic relations in the field of competition policy.

Speaking at the conference, Anatoly Golomolzin pointed out the draft Model Competition Act was devised by the Russian Federation. The Model Act is based on the best practices of the member-states of the Common Economic Space and the CIS, recommendations of OECD, and UNCTAD Model Competition Act. UNCTAD pays considerable attention to cooperation with regional groupings of developers and developed countries, and the issue of regional integration associations became one of the main items on the agenda of UNCTAD meetings. In particular, this organization look into the questions of dividing competence between the Union’ and national competition authorities, employing competition rules, independence and accountability of competition authorities. The issues of dividing competences are regulated within the Common Economic Space, and the Model Act, which is of advisory nature, is designed towards approximating legal regulation of economic relations in the field of competition policy among the states of the Common Economic Space.

“The Model Act establishes the procedures of exposing and suppressing the main anticompetitive practices of economic entities: cartel agreements, abusing market dominance, market monopolization though mergers and acquisitions. Considerable experience is accumulated in exposing and suppressing cartels; in particular, mechanisms for cooperation with law enforcement bodies are developed. Experience of joint operations under the umbrella of the Headquarters for joint investigations on the CIS markets is also important. For instance, the roaming case was simultaneously opened and closed by the antimonopoly bodies of Russia and Kazakhstan, and the results of the joint efforts led to two- and fourfold price reductions on the markets of communication services in the CIS in general”, commented Anatoly Golomolzin.

Deputy Head of FAS also supported a proposal of the Eurasian Economic Commission to include general norms regulating natural monopolies in the Model Competition Act and gave examples of such countries as Australia, the Netherlands, Germany and the Baltic States, where tariff regulation in specific sectors is formalized in the law on competition protection. Assigning tariff regulation functions to the antimonopoly bodies enabled effective restructurization of natural monopolies, protecting the interests of both consumers and suppliers of services in the most difficult period of transition, which, in its turn, ensured sustainable economic growth in these countries in the period of transition as well as upon completing the main reforms.

Deputy Head of FAS Legal Department, Denis Gavrilov made a presentation at the conference on the “Methods of Antimonopoly Enforcement with Regard to Intellectual Rights in View of Adopting Competition Model Act”.