OREANDA-NEWS. April 08, 2013. Stats-Secretary, Deputy Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) Andrey Tsarikovskiy and the Head of FAS Anti-Cartel Department Alexander Kinev made presentation at the IX Annual Legal Forum of Russia organized by the “Vedomosti” newspaper.

Giving a key-note speech about FAS anti-cartel efforts in 2012, Andrey Tsarikovskiy drew attention to quality changes in this field:

“We moved away from the practice of initiating small cases in violating antimonopoly cases – in 2012 we started exposing larger cartels that frequently spread through entire sectors of Russian economy”, pointed out Andrey Tsarikovskiy.

Deputy Head of FAS also informed the conference participants about the established system of suppressing cartels.

“Over a period of three years FAS has created a system of cartel countering –formed an organization structure, legal and methodological support, and special tools for proving cartels”, said Andrey Tsarikovskiy. “Now our task is to complete establishing positive judicial practice on cartels, particularly, by joint efforts with the Supreme Arbitration Court on a new edition of the ruling of the Plenum of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation on cartels”.

The session moderator, Alexander Kinev, made a report on FAS practice on cartel investigating. He gave examples to the Forum participants on the most interesting and the largest cartels exposed by FAS in 2011-2012.

Discussing the techniques of proving cartels, Alexander Kinev specially emphasized illegality of cartels per se, regardless of the consequences of their activities.

“Proving cartels, we are guided by a generally accepted international principle – cartels are prohibited per se; liability is imposed for the very fact of concluding a cartel collusion, regardless of whether such collusions were exercised and to which consequences such cartels led”, said Alexander Kinev.

Answering questions from the Forum participants, Alexander Kinev emphasized importance of openness and cooperation between the authorities and business in their attempts to combat cartels.

“It is possible to win over cartels with joint efforts of regulators and business” summed up Alexander Kinev.