OREANDA-NEWS. January 14, 2007. A regular joint session of the "Promotion of Competition" Non-Commercial Partnership and senior officials of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) on the issues of antimonopoly enforcement took place, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

The session discussed the issues of administrative leniency programme and applicability of provisions of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition" to transactions consummated outside the territory of the Russian Federation.

Under Article 14.32 of the Code of Administrative Violation of the Russian Federation CoAV), a company, which voluntarily withdrew from a cartel agreement and is cooperating with the antimonopoly authorities on its detection, can be relieved from punishment. Upon exchanging opinions regarding the scope of the above provision, the participants concluded that it is necessary to develop relevant Administrative Regulations of FAS Russia, detailing the leniency procedures. Therefore, FAS Russia plans to develop in the near future a rigorous "leniency programme" in cooperation with the "Promotion of Competition" Non-Commercial Partnership. The "leniency programme" should become an effective tool for enforcing the CoAV provision in question, which aims at facilitating detection of anticompetitive agreements and concerted actions. Developing and using such a document will be instrumental for considerable reduction of corruption in the antimonopoly bodies. Working groups of the "Promotion of Competition" Non-Commercial Partnership will present their proposals regarding the Administrative Regulations in the beginning of 2008.

Discussing the exterritorial principle of economic concentration control, the participants came to a unified viewpoint that the provisions of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition" should be mandatory for the transactions made outside the territory of the Russian Federation, if such transactions affect competition on the Russian markets. However, as the law does not specify in details which transactions must be controlled by the antimonopoly authorities, it is important to form a clear position. Experts of FAS Russia and the "Promotion of Competition" Non-Commercial Partnership will analyze the issue in more detail at one of the next sessions, upon studying the existing practice of economic concentration control.

In its next sessions with FAS Russia senior officials, the "Promotion of Competition" Non-Commercial Partnership intends to continue discussing key issues of law enforcement in terms of competition advocacy; particularly, discuss the conclusion of the "Promotion of Competition" Non-Commercial Partnership regarding the new edition of Article 178 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, prepared by FAS Russia, and consider the issues related to the definition of a group of persons in Article 9 of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition".

Reference:
"Promotion of Competition" Non-Commercial Partnership was founded in May 2007; its members are leading antimonopoly lawyers and economists, specializing in the economics of competition. The elected Chairman of the General Council of "Promotion of Competition" is Eugene Voevodin.

The Partnership Charter outlines the following main activities:
- Building-up efficient antimonopoly enforcement practice in close cooperation with the Russian antimonopoly authorities;
- Facilitating constructive dialogue between businesses and the Russian antimonopoly authorities on the issues of competition;
- Participating in legislative work on the issues of competition, etc.

Membership in the "Promotion of Competition" Non-Commercial Partnership can include physical persons (professional lawyers and economists, specializing in the competition law) as well as legal person - professional associations, including law firms, research institutions, etc.