OREANDA-NEWS. November 24, 2014. The Eurasian Economic Commission organized a Round Table in Vitebsk to discuss legal aspects of supporting equal conditions on the markets in various sectors of the economy.

A Member of the Collegium (Minister) on Competition and Antimonopoly Regulation of the Eurasian Economic Commission, Nurlan Aldabergenov, representatives of the antimonopoly authorities of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia as well as business and academic community took part in the event.

The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) was represented by Deputy Head of FAS Legal Department, Sergey Maximov, and the Head of Bashkortostan OFAS Russia, Zulfira Akbasheva.

Sergey Maximov highlighted the issues of applying UN Convention against transnational organized crimes for the purposes of combating cartels (the Convention).

In particular, Sergey Maximov pointed out that one of the forms of organized crime subject to criminal prosecution in Russia under the Convention are cartels formed by a criminal gang (Articles 178 and 210 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Sergey Maximov also drew attention to noticeable differences in the criminal law on liability for anticompetitive offences in the member-countries of the Eurasian Economic Union. He emphasized that “under the Criminal Code of Belarus the system of anti-cartel prohibitions is considerably broader than special prohibitions provided for in the law of Russia and Kazakhstan”.

According to FAS representative, the current Convention is hardly applicable to combat administratively liable cartels due to its focus on criminal offences. Mr. Maximov proposed to discuss an initiative of the Head of FAS Igor Artemiev, to study an option of adopting a special UN Anti-Cartel Convention as a possible solution. In the opinion of Sergey Maximov, it would be useful to consider more optimistic prospects of adopting a similar document at the level of rapidly developing BRICS upon Russia’s initiative.