OREANDA-NEWS. July 30, 2009. Pavel Soubbotin, the Chairman of the Expert Council and Deputy Head of FAS Russia, informed the meeting on the changes to the laws, devised by FAS Russia as part of the "second antimonopoly package", including the amendments to the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition", the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, etc., reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

He emphasized that "failure to adopt the amendments would have jeopardized efficiency of many FAS Russia's efforts".

Discussing the achievements of the FAS Russia's Department for Control over the Authorities in the previous year and the forthcoming plans for August-September 2009 in terms of identifying and removing business-restricting barriers, Pavel Soubbotin said: "We expect the work with experts will help improve mutual understanding with the business community. Your openness and our level of information will help us better understand each other".

Sergey Abyshev, the Deputy Head of the FAS Russia's Department for Control over the Authorities, talked about the outcome of antimonopoly cases against the authorities, processed by FAS Russia. In particular, he outlined cases against Rostechregulirovanie, Rosselkhoznadzor, the Russian Ministry of Emergencies, the Head of the Yegoryevsk District Authority, in Moscow region, etc.

Mr. Migin, Deputy General Director of the "National Institute for Systemic Research of Entrepreneurial Problems" NGO, and Alexei Kozhevnikov, an Assistant to the Head of FAS Russia, made a presentation "On Development of Self-Regulation in Russia: Activities of Self-Regulated Organizations that Can Restrict Competition for Small and Medium Business".

Among the main tasks on developing self-regulation, Mr. Migin pointed out at cutting down corruption and administrative barriers to business, eliminating excessive government regulation, providing support to small and medium business, improving the system of control and supervision, creating favourable conditions for entrepreneurial initiates. and implementing administrative reforms. He also discussed the risks of restricting competition, associated with self-regulated organizations, and gave several typical examples to illustrate existing opportunities and obstacles for developing self-regulation in various sectors. Mr. Migin specifically analyzed the cartel-type nature of newly formed organizations.

In his turn, Alexei Kozhevnikov drew the attention of the Expert Council to the annual FAS Russia's report on the state of competition in 2008, which was presented to the Government of the Russian Federation in July 2009. The 2008 Chapter on proposals for stimulating competition in the markets of the Russian Federation included a new paragraph on developing small business. In this section FAS Russia outlined the need to review the laws on self-regulated organizations in order to prevent creating additional administrative barriers restricting market entry for new companies. "Today the Antimonopoly Service receives numerous signals from representatives of small and medium business, involved in construction, who inform that creating self-regulating organizations in construction industry raises new administrative and financial barriers for their market entry", concluded Alexei Kozhevnikov.

The last item on the agenda was "On restricting access of lottery operators to the market by the Savings Bank of Russia". In course of the discussion, Mr Pyatkov, the Vice-President of the Inter-Regional Association of Companies Involved in the Lottery Business, proposed to investigate whether the actions undertaken by the Savings Bank of Russia and its four partner companies to refuse the access of lottery operators to bank services for distributing lottery tickets had conformed to the antimonopoly legislation and should any violations be revealed, apply appropriate measures of antimonopoly regulation.

Summing up the meeting, the Expert Council decided to form a Working Group, which would study the situation with self-regulated organization in terms of their compliance with the antimonopoly legislation.