OREANDA-NEWS. September 29, 2014. “Sochi Legal” took place under the frame of “Sochi-2014” International Investment Forum and brought together more than 200 attendees from 24 countries. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) was represented by Deputy Head of FAS, Andrey Tsyganov. “Sochi Legal” discussed a wide range of issues that are of interest for the global legal community – from criminal risks and anti-offshore measures to experience of supporting large investment projects taken an example of Sochi.

Andrey Tsyganov made a presentation about the “Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union and the Issues of FAS cooperation with competition authorities of the Republic of Belarus and the Republic of Kazakhstan” at the session “CIS and the Common Economic Space: Legal Nuances for Business”.

Starting up, Andrey Tsyganov reminded that the Treaty was signed on 29th May 2014 in Astana by the Presidents of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. It formalizes a transition of the three countries to the next stage of integration (after the Customs Union and the Common Economic Space) – the Economic Union, and declared the principle of “three freedoms” – free movement of goods and services, capital and labour force.

The general principles and rules of competition are specified in Section XVIII of the Treaty. The general principles include legal prohibitions of agreements between the authorities and granting state and municipal preferences, except cases determined by the Treaty; an obligation to adopt effective measures to control compliance with those prohibitions, and effectively control economic concentration; forming a government body implementing competition policy; setting fines; developing cooperation between the antimonopoly bodies of the member-states; ensuring information openness of competition policy and work of the antimonopoly body.

The general competition rules include prohibition of abusing dominance by economic entities, concluding anticompetitive agreements between them and prohibiting unfair competition.

“We especially emphasize competition rules and principles that in this filed integration processes achieved new stages of development. Based on the 20-year experience of cooperation between national antimonopoly bodies, the member–states of the Common Economic Space agreed to delegate part of their authority to the level of international integrative association. The Eurasian Economic Commission was given independent powers for antimonopoly control on cross-border markets. In cooperation with the national bodies, it will be able to carry out investigations, request and receive information as well as make decisions and impose sanctions upon violators”, said Andrey Tsyganov.

The Eurasian Economic Union starts functioning on 1st January 2015. The member–states of the Common Economic Space are at the final stage of consenting upon completing an Agreement on the procedures for protecting confidential information and liability for its disclosure in the course of the Eurasian Economic Commission exercising its powers for enforcing compliance with the common competition rules. The Russian Federation has already completed the intra-state procedures.