OREANDA-NEWS. July 15, 2014. Non-Commercial Partnership for Competition Support in the CIS, with support of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia), organized a Conference on “Practical Issues of Enforcement of the Antimonopoly Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan”.

The welcoming address was given by Deputy Head of FAS, Anatoly Golomolzin. In particular, he pointed out that Kazakhstan, as well as other countries, adjusts the antimonopoly norms and enforcement practice in accordance with the Treaty on Eurasian Economic Union. Procedures for cooperation between national antimonopoly bodies and the supra-national Eurasian Commission must be established. The format of the Conference enabled both regulators and representatives of legal firms – members of Non-Commercial Partnership for Competition Support in the CIS to take part in the discussion.

Along with Anatoly Golomolzin, the Chairman of the Council of Non-Commercial Partnership for Competition Support in the CIS, Vasily Rudomino, and Deputy Director of the Antimonopoly Regulation Department of the Eurasian Economic Commission, Almat Fazyl, also emphasized the importance of the Conference.

The first session focused on the specifics of regulating anticompetitive agreements and concerted actions of market participants and actions (omissions) of market participants with the dominant (monopolistic) position. The problem was discussed in the report made by Director of the Investigation Department, of the Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan for Competition Protection, Anuar Khatiev.

Next, a senior lawyer of Baker & McKenzie – CIS, Limited, a member of the Council of Non-Commercial Partnership for Competition Support in the CIS, Alexander Korobeinikov, highlighted such issues as “Specifics of restrictions for distributor agreements and exclusivity agreements” and “Enforcement practice on the law on dominance in Kazakhstan”. The latter seemed to be especially interesting for the Conference participants.

The second session discussed some issues related to control over economic concentration. In particular, a lawyer of an international legal firm – Dentons, Akybek Kusainov, talked about the principles of government regulation over economic concentration in Kazakhstan and proposals towards improving the approval procedures in the Republic.

The third session was devoted to cooperation between national antimonopoly authorities in the Eurasian Economic Space and the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC).

The session was moderated by Deputy Head of FAS, Andrey Tsyganov. In the introductory speech, he pointed out that the member-states of the Eurasian Economic Space are coordinating the Agreement on the procedures for confidential information protection and liability for its disclosure in EEC exercising the powers for control over compliance with the common competition rules. Upon the document coming into force, EEC will be assigned the powers to control enforcement of the antimonopoly law on the cross-border markets.

Also Deputy Head of FAS, Anatoly Golomolzin informed the session participants about the accumulated experience of cooperation between the antimonopoly bodies of Russian and Kazakhstan, particularly, the results of joint investigations and analysis of socially-important and infrastructure markets: passenger air transportation, international telephony, retail, oil and oil products. The work on another report on the findings of a large-scale survey of the state of competition on the drug markets is at the final stage.

Deputy Director of the Antimonopoly Regulation Department, Almat Fazyl, discussed in detail the legal framework of cooperation between EEC and the national competition authorities of the member-states of the Eurasian Economic Space.

Concluding the Conference, participants once again emphasized that the event was result-oriented; particularly, it was designed to enhance investment attractiveness of Kazakhstan economy for Russian business. A decision was made to organize conferences in 2014 and 2015 to discuss practical issues of enforcement of the antimonopoly law of other member-states of the Eurasian Economic Space.