OREANDA-NEWS. September 22, 2014. The IV All-Russian Research-to-Practice Conference on Competition Policy opened at the Conference Hall of the Main Building of Voronezh State University.

The Conference is organized by Voronezh State University, the Office of the Federal Antimonopoly Service in the Voronezh region with support of the Government of the Voronezh region.

In the welcoming address, Deputy Head of FAS, Andrey Kashevarov, pointed out that the event is very important for the antimonopoly authority because it enables discussing the problems and draft proposals to resolve them jointly with the academic community. This year participants’ reports are already collected and published as the Conference proceedings by the start of the Conference. Deputy Head of FAS also thanked the organizers for their considerable efforts to arrange such a significant, key event.

Rector of Voronezh State University, Dmitry Yendovitsky, stated in his welcoming address that “this Conference in the walls of our university becomes traditional. Every time we raise serious, pressing issues related to developing competition, improving the antimonopoly law, the work of antimonopoly bodies, we search the avenues to solve problems, as well as interesting ways out from deadlock, at the first glance, situations. We purport very serious goals for advancing our Conference, particularly, collaborative applied research projects. I am happy to inform you that this year as a pilot project we have enrolled seven talented students – officers of the Antimonopoly Service – in an MA programme on “Analysis, Regulation and Control of Antimonopoly Work”.

First Deputy Head of Voronezh Authority on Municipal Services, Sergey Kryuchkov, addressed participants on behalf of the Head of Voronezh Authority, Alexander Gousev. He wished the Conference productive work and obtaining answers to all questions of concern.

Attendees included Deputy Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service, Andrey Kashevarov; the Head of Voronezh OFAS, Vladimir Rokhmistrov; members of judiciary; representatives of the Government of the Voronezh region, Voronezh City Authority, the Expert Council on Advertising; representatives of advertising business, self-regulated organizations in advertising and mass media.

The Conference objective is to sum up research findings in the theory, methodology and organization of antimonopoly work, evaluation of advertisements and competition analysis, and summarize the work practice of regional and federal antimonopoly bodies.

At a press-conference after the first part of the plenary session, Andrey Kashevarov and Vladimir Rokhmistrov answered questions from journalists representing the leading regional publications about changes in the pricing policy due to the sanctions form the West, problems related to the advertising law, qualifying unfair competition, and planned novelties in the field of preventing unfair competition.