OREANDA-NEWS. November 18, 2013. The latest amendments to the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” considerably expand the institutions of warnings and admonitions that are expanded to violations committed by the authorities, unfair competition, and other violations with abusing market dominance. Stats-Secretary, Deputy Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) Andrey Tsarikovskiy made this statement at a Guest Conference under the aegis of St Petersburg International Legal Forum (SPILF) in Paris.

The amendments are devised to enforce the Road Map for “Developing Competition and Improving the Antimonopoly Law”. They follow the recommendations given by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which in July 2013 recognized that competition policy in Russia met OECD standards.

“Prior to initiating an antimonopoly case FAS shall issue a warning to business and the authorities to stop inadmissible actions”, pointed out Andrey Tsarikovskiy. – “Now business will be able to promptly eliminate violations without fines, consumers will be able to protect their rights promptly and efficiently, and the Courts will experience a dramatic decrease in cases they must consider”.

The amendments restrict possibilities to form state or municipal unitary enterprises, put limitations upon FAS in terms of issuing determinations to publish the rules of trade practice, and introduce preliminary control over agreements on joint operations. From 1st January 2015, FAS Presidium will have powers to reconsider the decisions on cases on antimonopoly violations.

Deputy Head of FAS emphasized: “We shall focus on big cases that that have a significant impact upon the state of competition. Administrative intervention in relations between market participants will be reduced considerably, including complete abolition of pre-merger notifications. It means that entrepreneurs will not have to file over 2,000 notifications per year to FAS”.

In conclusion, Andrey Tsarikovskiy stressed the importance of result-oriented cooperation between competition authorities on the global markets and expanding the forms of such cooperation from consultations to fully-fledged joint investigations and inspections in the partner countries.