OREANDA-NEWS. May 26, 2011. The 10th Annual Conference of the International Competition Network (ICN) took place. Delegates were welcomed by the Acting Head of the Netherlands Completion Authority, Mr. Henk Don, and Vice-President of the European Commission, the European Commissioner for Competition, Mr. Joaquin Almunia, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

FAS Russia’s delegation, led by Stats-Secretary, Deputy Head of FAS Andrey Tsarikovskiy, took active part in the Conference.

The highlights of the first day the ICN Annual Conference included Plenary and Break-out Sessions of the ICN Advocacy Working Group, chaired by FAS Russia. The main topic for the Group discussions was the principles of competition advocacy within the system of public administration.

The heads of the strongest competition authorities in the world - Bruno Lassere, the President of the French Competition Authority; Eduardo Perez Motta, the Chairman of Mexican Federal Competition Commission; Kazuhiko Takeshima, the Chairman of Japan Fair Trade Commission; and John Fingleton, Chief Executive of the UK Office of Fair Trading and the Chairman of the ICN Steering Committee – took part in the Plenary Session of the Working Group.

“Under the ICN rules the same representative of a particular competition authority cannot take part in plenary sessions twice, so we highly appreciate the fact that the heads of the above competition authorities have chosen the Plenary Session of the Working Group chaired by FAS Russia”, said Andrey Tsarikovskiy.

At one of the Break-out Sessions a report was made by Deputy Head of the FAS Russia’s Department for International Economic Cooperation, Mr. Andrey Yunak, who talked about the main aspects of improving the principles of competition in the system of public procurement in Russia.

The Merger Working Group had sessions on the second day of the Conference. One of the Break-out Sessions was moderated by Assistant to the Head of FAS Russia, Mr. Vladimir Kachalin. He informed participants about FAS Russia’s efforts to control economic concentration, particularly, about changes in Russian competition law in this field as well as about international cooperation with foreign competition authorities in course of merger examination.

Conference participants also discussed the Project for consultative assistance to be provided by more experienced competition authorities. FAS Russia has an extensive experience of consulting other competition authorities within the ICN framework. For instance, FAS experts repeatedly held consultations with the officers of competition authorities of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia aimed at improving the antimonopoly law in these counties.

More details about the ICN conference can be found on its official web-site: http://www.icn-thehague.org/page.php.