OREANDA-NEWS. May 23, 2013. “The time when cartels in Russia could be exposed by finding written evidence of their existence becomes a thing of the past. In the whole world most cartels are exposed through leniency programmes for participating in cartels when one of cartel participants voluntarily reports a cartel to an antimonopoly body”, stated Stats-Secretary, Deputy Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) Andrey Tsarikovskiy at a session on the “Internalization Problems in Cartel Investigations” at Petersburg Legal Forum on 16th May 2013.

According to Andrey Tsarikovskiy, the leniency programme in Russia works poorly because at the moment it provides for unequivocal administrative leniency for legal persons but does not guarantee releasing physical persons from criminal prosecution.

The main FAS objective for the near future is to resolve this contradiction by law.

Andrey Tsarikovskiy believes that efficient anti-cartel efforts will also be encouraged by tough sanctions in the form of imprisonment for participating in cartels. “Economic benefits from participating in cartels often exceed or are comparable with the losses in the form of “turnover fines” that can be incurred by the company. Therefore, we pin high hopes on Article 178 of the Criminal Code when only a fear of criminal liability can force top-managers to doubt involvement in cartels”, thinks Andrey Tsarikovskiy.

Deputy Head of FAS reminded that a month ago the Government of the Russian Federation had introduced a draft law to the State Duma on amendments to 178 Article of the Criminal Code that must remove the existing contradictions.

The President of the International Bar Association, Michael Reynolds, pointed out that the following trends of antimonopoly regulation were observed in the world: intensifying anti-cartel efforts and inter-agency cooperation between the antimonopoly bodies of different countries in investigating international cartels.

Harry Spratling, a partner in Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP also talked about globalization of cartel investigations. He said that the competition authorities of the USA, the EU, Japan, Australia, South Korea and Brazil undertake the most robust efforts investigating international cartels. He expressed hope that Russia also would be actively involved in the process.

A senior “ALRUD” Partner, Vladimir Rudomino said that further advancement of FAS Russia in the performance rating of antimonopoly bodies compiled by Global Competition Review and becoming one of the top ten agencies as the task set in the Strategy of Developing Antimonopoly Regulation for up to 2024, devised by FAS, shall be achieved with FAS intensifying its efforts for investigating international cartels. He emphasized that launch opportunities in Russia were very good.