OREANDA-NEWS.  September 30, 2014. Budapest Regional Competition Centre OECD-Hungary organized a workshop in Budapest (Hungary) to discuss competition issues on retail markets.

Participants included representatives of competition authorities from Albania, Armenia, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Russia, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine, as well as competition experts from the countries – members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) was represented at the workshop by Deputy Head of the Department for Control over Social Sphere and Trade, Ekaterina Uryukina, and Deputy Head of Moscow OFAS, Elena Petrusenko.

Participants shared experience of investigating cases on complex mergers, discussed specifics of market definition and methodology, the issues of sectoral market research, problems of merger control (oligopolistic markets, buyers power), as well as vertical restrictions (exclusive dealership, maintaining reseal price).

As examples, OECD experts discussed cases for merging Casino and Monoprix networks (France), German sectoral research of retail food products market, a Greek study of a sector of fruits and vegetables market, and a Greek case on “Tasty” (Lay’s chips), etc.

Ekaterina Uryukina, made a presentation on researching relations between trade networks and suppliers carried out by FAS since 2008. Such studies, in particular, expose facts of violating the antimonopoly law and constitute the grounds for opening cases.

Participants also discussed the issue of international cooperation between the antimonopoly bodies investigating complex mergers abroad. They emphasized importance of such events enabling to learn about enforcement practice of competition authorities in other countries.