OREANDA-NEWS. October 11, 2013. At the end of September the Commission of the Republic of Bulgaria for Protection of Competition organized training for representatives of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) in Sofia (Bulgaria) as part of the Programme for cooperation between competition authorities.

In the course of the training, participants discussed the most pressing issues of antimonopoly enforcement by Bulgaria’s and Russia’s competition authorities and exchanging experience on antimonopoly control and supervision in the electric power, fuel and retail food products markets, public procurement and unfair competition.

Bulgarian colleagues showed a considerable interest to Russian procedures of open electronic auctions (Bulgaria is discussing such procedures), as well as the practice of holding liable for violating the law on procurement by officials of the authorities and local self-government bodies. Representatives of FAS, in their turn, were interested in the Code of consolidated rules on expert examination of draft and adopted normative acts in Bulgaria in terms of the effects upon competition, as well as specially devised corporate programmes for competitive loyalty of big companies. Also Russian representatives pointed out at longer periods of considering complaints by the Commission (30 days instead of five days in Russia), and the need to pay state duties to appeal procurement procedures.

“Exchanging such practical experience using particular cases investigated by the competition authorities and their comparative analysis facilitates clearer understanding of the basic principles of the antimonopoly regulation in different fields of economy. Training participants are grateful to their colleagues from the Commission of the Republic of Bulgaria for Protection of Competition for the warm welcome and productive training programme”, summed up the Head of the FAS Department for International Economic Cooperation, Lesya Davydova.