OREANDA-NEWS. May 19, 2014. An international workshop on “Compliance with the Antimonopoly Law in Agro-Industrial Complex” opened at the Centre for Education and Methodics of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) in Kazan.

The Head of FAS Department for International Economic Cooperation, Lesya Davydova, and Director of FAS Centre for Education and Methodics, Lenar Shafigullin, welcomed the workshop participants that included representatives of the competition authorities of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Bulgaria, Serbia, Japan, Indonesia and Ecuador.

“FAS Centre for Education and Methodics opened in 2012; a year ago it was assigned a status of a base organization of the CIS member-states for professional retraining and advancing qualification of personnel in the field of antimonopoly regulation and competition policy”, emphasized Lesya Davydova. “Activities of the Centre for Education and Methodics are acknowledged at the international level”.

According to Lenar Shafigullin, over 100 programmes for advancing qualification of civil servants are developed. Only in 2013, around 1500 staff members took part in the events of the Centre for Education and Methodics; in Q4 2014 - around 2500 staff members.

The workshop started with a report by the Head of FAS Analytical Department, Alexei Sushkevich, on economic analysis in Russian antimonopoly enforcement.

“Currently, the State intervenes in entrepreneurial activities only to restore the infringed rights of consumers or a competitor. To this purpose, in particular, FAS analyses the state of competition on the markets”, said Alexei Sushkevich. “In Russia only the antimonopoly authority conducts such analysis. Economic time-frame for analysis is one year”. As pointed out the Deputy Head of FAS Department for Control over Chemical Industry and Agro-Industrial Complex, Irina Epifanova, for the food markets the time-frame, however, can be up to five years, since market parameters depend on climatic and natural conditions.

Various data can be used as analysis tools (accounting and analytical reports, contracts and even communications). Today the antimonopoly authority is not obligated to request and consider data that can be submitted by market participants, that is, - the interested parties. In the near future, it will become mandatory upon introducing changes to No. 220 Order and the Procedures for analyzing the state on competition on the market.

Overall, in 2013-2014 it is planned to conduct 31 market surveys. This year, FAS has already analyzed the market of grain storage and warehousing and the market of mineral fertilizers.

Although, as mentioned by Alexei Sushkevich, every year, investigating nearly each of 2500 cases FAS has to analyze markets to make a decision. “For instance, cartel agreements can be exposed without market analysis, but market analysis is vital for calculating fines”.

In more detail, the methodological basis of economic analysis is described in a presentation of Alexei Sushkevich.

The Senior for Economic analysis of the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC), Mr. Koki Arai discussed specifics of economic analysis in Japan.

JFTC’ Investigations Bureau, has a position of a chief economist responsible for market analysis. JFTC finds it very important to analyze product substitutability: whether consumers can switch to an alternative but cheaper product if price increases. The analysis is built on comparisons of goods prices and qualities, and consumer surveys, particular by telephone calls, letters.

Deputy Head of FAS, Andrey Tsyganov, informed the workshop participants about the substance and the main directions of development of competition policy, the main functions of the Federal Antimonopoly Service, its powers, the results of work and strategic plans.

Andrey Tsyganov emphasized that in Russia the antimonopoly law applies not only to economic entities but also to the authorities and their officials preventing development of competition. Such practices also take place in the CIS states and the People’s Republic of China.

The first day of the workshop ended with a presentation by Irina Epifanova about specifics of analyzing agricultural markets. Typically, such analysis takes place within the constituent territories of the Russian Federation taking into account transportation costs, storage life for food and some other factors.

In conclusion, Irina Epifanova stated that by 01.04.2014 FAS investigated 68 cases for violating the antimonopoly law, the law on trade and administrative violations on agro-food markets. The total fines reach around 11.5 million RUB.