OREANDA-NEWS. September 20, 2013. The Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) Igor Artemiev at the plenary session of Competition Day in Russia (Irkutsk) discussed the prospects of international cooperation in investigations of antimonopoly violations.

According to Igor Artemiev, one of the main areas of cooperation with the antimonopoly bodies of the CIS member-states is the work of the interstate Council on Antimonopoly Policy (ICAP) and the Headquarters for Joint Investigations founded by the Council. In 20 years of ICAP work the CIS member states have achieved significant results in harmonizing the antimonopoly law, establish close cooperation in conducting investigations and develop a mechanism of coherent measures of antimonopoly response that proved its efficiency.

Igor Artemiev gave some examples: approving the recommendations for developing competition on the markets of air transportation, international cellular communications, and retail by the Heads of the governments of the CIS states. Through member cooperation, ICAP was able to stabilize prices for oil products, and reduce international roaming rates by 1.5-4 times on certain directions, and increase the traffic by 2-4 times.

The Head of FAS outlined specifics of competition policy within the Common economic Space aimed at creating supra-national institutions of competition protection. For instance, Igor Artemiev reminded that at the end of 2010 Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia signed the Agreement on Common Competition Principles and Rules. It enables to significantly extend the mechanism of cooperation between the three states, including exchanging confidential information and enforcement upon a request from one of the parties to the Agreement.

Igor Artemiev specially emphasized that efficient investigation of international violations would require result-oriented cooperation between competition authorities on the global markets.

According to the Head of FAS, such a level of cooperation can be achieved by expanding the form of cooperation, signing international agreements that provide for exchanging confidential information and devising the procedures for joint control measures in the partner-countries.