OREANDA-NEWS. October 23, 2014. Antimonopoly compliance – a sheer formality or a necessity? - That was the theme of the presentation of Deputy Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia), Andrey Tsyganov, in Brussels at the “Antimonopoly Regulation in Russia” Conference organized by the Vedomosti newspaper.

“The system of antimonopoly compliance must be one of important elements of any corporation. It enables to not only minimize the risks of non-compliance with the antimonopoly law but also avoid fines. Thanks to it the company can expose and correct the violation before the antimonopoly body finds out about it”, emphasized Deputy Head of FAS.

In the UK, Canada, France and the European Union competition authorities have already drafted Recommendations for corporation on compliance procedures. Russia has already started this work. Compliance is a separate item in FAS Strategy for developing the antimonopoly law. “To implement it – build an efficient system of compliance control in line with the best international practices, we are learning from the experience of our Western colleagues”, pointed out Andrey Tsyganov.

In many foreign companies compliance is already an integral element of the system of corporate management. Russian companies also do not drag behind and started to put efforts in this field independently, devising ethical codes and trading policies.

Currently there are discussions in Russia and abroad whether corporate compliance can be a mitigating circumstance in making decisions on violating the antimonopoly law. Opinions differ but in any case the system should work and if it was unable to prevent a violation, it means something is wrong in the system and it needs refining.

“In fact, the size of the company also is not important” pointed out Deputy Head of FAS. “The compliance system plays a significant role in managing corporations as well as small and medium companies. It can also be applied by executive authorities and local self-government bodies in view of specifics of the antimonopoly law”.