OREANDA-NEWS. October 11, 2013. The Advertising Coordination Council at the Interstate Council on Antimonopoly Policy held its 11th session chaired by Deputy Head of FAS Andrey Kashevarov.

The event was attended by representatives of the antimonopoly bodies of the CIS member-states: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

The Council Chairman, Deputy Head of FAS, Andrey Kashevarov, and Deputy Council Chairman, the Chairman of the executive Committee, Sergey Pilatov, welcomed participants and wished them productive work. The Head of the secretariat of the Interstate Council on Antimonopoly Policy, Azam Usmanov, informed the session about the outcome of the extended FAS Collegium and ICAP Anniversary Session in September 2-1013 in Irkutsk.

The agenda of the Coordination Council included the issues of most interest for representatives the CIS member-states, such as:

- Developing the electronic communication facilities of the Coordination Council: a recently developed Council web- http://sovetreklama.org

- The most pressing examples and problems in enforcement of the advertising law and cooperation between the authorities and business-community in the filed of advertising, as well as the prospects of developing this sector in the CIS, and some other issues related to further joint work.

Russia’s representative in the Council, Tatiana Nikitina, gave the general statistics of violations of the advertising law exposed by FAS in the first six months of 2013 and discussed the efforts of FAS Expert Council on enforcement of the advertising law. She paid special attention to suppressing improper advertising of financial services, alcohol products, medicines and dietary supplements; and also shared problems that FAS can deal with considering petitions from physical persons about unsolicited bulk SMS and e-mail messages of advertising nature, that is – unlawful messages.

Following an established tradition, participants presented information about social-and-economic situation in the CIS member-states in the first six months of 2013.

The second part of the session involved an active dialogue between representatives of the member-states of the Council on specifics of enforcement practice on compliance with the advertising law. The discussion focused on social advertising, using the official state language in advertising, advertisements on currency notes, censorship in advertising, etc. For instance, Andrey Kashevarov shared with Belarus representatives FAS experience of defence against umbrella brands.

Reference:

1. The Advertising Coordination Council at the Interstate Council on Antimonopoly Policy is a permanent consultative and advisory body formed to support cooperation between the government bodies of the CIS member-states regulating advertising and participants of the advertising market.

The main goals of the Council are: facilitating establishing and development of the advertising market within the economic space of the CIS member-states; preventing dissemination of improper advertisements that violate the national laws of the CIS member-states and general ethical principles, as well as developing self-regulation of advertising activities in these countries.

2. The web-site of the Advertising Coordination Council at the Interstate Council on Antimonopoly Policy (ICAP) – http://sovetreklama.org was launched in summer 2013. It gives detailed information about the Council (its composition, sessions, protocols) and the latest news in the field of advertising.