OREANDA-NEWS. July 14, 2014. This was the theme of the Round Table of “Russian Corporate Counsel Association” Non-Commercial Partnership (RCCA). Deputy Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia), Andrey Tsyganov, and the Head of FAS Legal Department, Sergey Puzyrevsky, took part in the Round Table.

One of the main themes of the discussion was the 4th antimonopoly package, adopting which shall considerably facilitate doing business by entrepreneurs.

Discussing the main novelties of the draft law, FAS representatives once again emphasized that antimonopoly regulation shall not be applicable to the results of intellectual property. “We are not interested in a patent but in consumer qualities of the goods where it was used”, clarified Andrey Tsyganov. “A patent, however, does not give the right to abuse dominance on a relevant market”, added Sergey Puzurevsky.

The draft law also clarifies the criteria for establishing the dominant position. For instance, it is proposed to exclude possibility of recognizing dominance of companies with over 35% market share and eliminate the Register of economic entities with over 35% market share. It will not only reduce the administrative burden upon the dominant economic entities but also considerably decrease the number of economic concentration transactions that are subject to government control.

A big group of violations will be given a formal status to accelerate their consideration – cases for connecting to infrastructure (around 1400 cases per year). The subject of such cases will be violating non-discriminatory access rather than abusing dominance, which implies a faster procedure for holding violators administratively liable.

Adopting the 4th antimonopoly package also clarifies the concept of “cartel”. It will mean not only an anticompetitive agreement between sellers but also a buyers’ collusion. This measure, in particularly, can be a deterrent factor for the bidders employing anticompetitive strategies.

Another theme at the Round Table was the principle of FAS Presidium work. Its main objective is to form unified enforcement practice. The Presidium will consider contested decisions made by any of 84 FAS regional Offices, without going to Courts, but only under the Law “On Protection of Competition”. The period of consideration will be two months.

A new version of No.220 Order on the procedures for analyzing the state of competition on the market was presented. “The work on the new version is not completed so interested persons can send their proposals on its improvement”, pointed out Sergey Puzurevsky. It is published at the unified portal for publishing information on drafting normative legal acts by federal executive bodies and the results of their public discussions – http://regulation.gov.ru/project/15275.html.

The member-states of the Common Economic Space are approving an Agreement on the procedures for protecting confidential information and liability for its disclosure in the course of the Eurasian Economic Commission exercising control over compliance with the common competition rules. “With the document coming into force the Eurasian Economic Commission will start enforcement – it will obtain powers for control over enforcement of the antimonopoly law on the cross-border markets”, explained Andrey Tsyganov.