OREANDA-NEWS. October 21, 2014. The VI Annual Conference on Antimonopoly Regulation in Russia” included a session on the “Rules for non-discriminatory access and trading policies”.

The session was moderated by an advisor to CapitalLegalServices, Irina Akjimova, and the Head of antimonopoly practice of ART DE LEX Law Firm, Yaroslav Kulik.

Discussion participants included: Deputy Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia), Anatoly Golomolzin; the Head of FAS Department for Control over Social Sphere and Trade, Timophei Nizhegorodtsev; First Deputy General Director of “Rosset” on Technical Policy, Roman Berdnikov; the Head of the Department for Relations with the Authorities of ММК Managing Company, Alexei Buryak; Director on Legal Issues, “Novartis” Group, Larisa Matveeva: a legal advisor, Medical Products Division, Johnson & Johnson”, Elena Sidorova; Legal Director, “Eurochem”, Valery Sidnev; Director, Legal Department, “Unilever Russia, Ukraine, Belarus”, Svetlana Tsareva.

Timophei Nizhegorodtsev made a report: “FCPA and BriberyAct – a part of Russian antimonopoly law”.

According to Timophei Nizhegorodtsev, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and United Kingdom Bribery Act are elements of antimonopoly law because these acts prohibit companies to buy and otherwise affect actions and decisions of officials or the authorities to gain market advantages.

“Producers and distributors of products on Russian market get advantages by creating an impression of exclusivity and substitutability of the goods and generating demand for them”, said the speaker.

Companies get such advantages through unfair cooperation with:

Registration bodies entering changes to the product regulatory documents

Government customers and officials participating in compiling bids and auction documentation

Expert community putting pressure on government agencies that determine procurement conditions.

“Establishing an exclusive position by a company results in the Federal Antimonopoly Service recognizing market dominance of this company”, pointed out Timophei Nizhegorodtsev and outlined FAS approaches to “demolishing” the system of corruptive interaction.

He emphasized that “FAS requirement to providing access of unlimited range of companies to the goods of the dominant market entity is designed to eliminate exclusivity of vertical relations – the main elements of the system of corruptive interactions”.

Under the frame of eliminating exclusivity of vertical relations and in order to reduce risks of antimonopoly investigations, FAS proposes to the companies with dominant market position to form commercial policies that will be accessible for all potential counteragents (distributors) of the dominant company.

Timophei Nizhegorodtsev listed pluses and minuses of such commercial policies. For instance, training and personnel and staff compliance with in-house anti-corruption procedures, and at the same time, lack of evaluation whether companies act bona fide on the market in the real life.

Concluding the report, he emphasized that the antimonopoly and anti-corruption laws supplement each other. “Competition protection takes place through protecting certain persons whose rights were infringed by dominant entities, particularly, as part of their engagement in corruption through concluding exclusive vertical agreements that they protect. Compliance with the antimonopoly law is a necessary condition and an element of preventing corruptive behavior”.

Deputy Head of FAS Anatoly Golomolzin also made a report on the Rules for non-discriminatory access and trading policies.

“FAS devised the Rules as far back as 2004, and since then we have been improving and detailing them. These are the most elaborated on and applied Rules for non-discriminatory access from all industries”, emphasized the speaker. “Thanks to improving these Rules and the Rules for technological connection Russia for the first time since 2008 is included in the first hundred of the DoingBusiness ranking, rising by 19 lines in 2013, making a breakthrough under the “Connecting to Electric Power Networks” index by 70 positions”.

Then he discussed the main violations of the antimonopoly law by natural monopolies, the most wide-spread of which are violations of the Rules for non-discriminatory access and the Rules for technological connection.

In this connection, FAS drafted proposals on administrative liability for such violations. It will cut down around 500 cases initiated by the antimonopoly bodies. The package of amendments is already submitted to the Government of the Russian Federation.

Discussing trading policies, Anatoly Golomolzin emphasized that these documents and their enforcement practice became an important step in establishing civilized market relations on the markets of oil and oil products in the Russian Federation.

The purposes of signing the trading policies are:

Maximize transparency of companies’ sales for the existing and potential buyers, regulators, company employees and other stakeholders.

Preventing violations of the law of the Russian Federation.

Informing about the company policy on sale of oil products on wholesale markets in the Russian Federation, particularly, on the procedures for selecting counteragents and pricing.

Providing non-discriminatory access to the wholesale market of gasoline and services to oil products storage, sale of oil products under the conditions enabling to observe the regularity and evenness of shipments from refineries in view of logistical possibilities for buyers.

Organizations splitting off the companies that are involved in wholesale and retail sale of oil products by types of activities.