OREANDA-NEWS.  September 19, 2013. The statement was made by the Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) Igor Artemiev on 10th September 2013 at the plenary session of Competition Day in Russia (Irkutsk).

Discussing the results of FAS work in the past years, Igor Artemiev pointed out that the number of post-merger notifications on economic concentration reduced by 22 times from 2008, and the number of pre-merger notifications decreased twofold. From 1st January 2014 preliminary control over such transactions will be completely abolished.

Igor Artemiev said that in comparison with 2010 the number of cases opened by FAS decreased by 12.4%. It became possible, in particular, due to the “third antimonopoly package” which introduced new institutions of warnings and admonitions. According to the Head of FAS, these institutions proved to be truly good. For instance, 75% of the warnings issued in 2012 were executed which enabled FAS not to initiated antimonopoly cases.

“Today our goal is to reduce administrative burden upon bona fide market participants but at the same time create conditions when it is not beneficial for unfair market players to violate the law”, said Igor Artemiev.

Discussing efficiency indicators of the work of the Antimonopoly Service, the Head of FAS emphasized importance of the outcome of appealing FAS decisions at Courts of Law. For instance, in 2012 38% of FAS decisions were appealed, of which Courts reversed 16.3%. In the opinion of Igor Artemiev, it is a good indicator proving the high quality of FAS control.

The overall sum of the fines transferred to the federal budget in 2008 - 2012 was around \\$1 billion. Vertically-integrated oil companies had to pay large fines.

“The size of the fines and efficient work of Courts make entrepreneurs understand the need to comply with the antimonopoly law”, stated Igor Artemiev. “Companies stopped hiding from us and started disclosing information because they understood that it is simply not to their advantage to remain closed”.

According to Igor Artemiev, overall, due to the efforts of the antimonopoly authority and support by Courts, Russia has developed civilized relationships on the markets of oil and oil products, metallurgy. FAS plans to achieve similar results on the pharmaceutical market in the near future.