OREANDA-NEWS. April 10, 2014. The statement was made by the Head of the Legal Department of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia), Sergey Puzyrevsky, at the research-to-practice conference on “Developing Competition Law: the Existing Needs and Problems of legal Regulation”.

The Head of FAS, Igor Artemiev; Deputy Heads of FAS Legal Department, Sergey Maximov and Denis Gavrilov; Deputy Head of FAS Anti-Cartel Department, Konstantin Alyoshin; the Head of Moscow Regional OFAS, Igor Bashlakov-Nikolaev; Vice-Principal on Research, Kutafin Moscow State University of Law (MSLA), Vladimir Sinyukov; the Head of the Department of Entrepreneurial Law, at Kutafin Moscow State University of Law, Inna Yershova; a judge of the Copyright Court, Alexander Snegur; the President of Russian Corporate Counsel Association, Alexandra Nesterenko; and members of Non-Profit Partnership for Competition Support took part in the Conference.

The most discussed theme was introducing the “competition law” discipline in the Federal State Standard of Higher Professional Education.

“Development of a science-based component of training specialists in competition law is an important element of a high-quality antimonopoly policy in Russia. Both business and the authorities feel a need in skilled personnel in the field of competition protection. Therefore, including the “competition law” discipline in the Standard of Higher Professional Education shall be a guarantee for training skilled staff in the field of competition protection”, commented Sergey Puzyrevsky.

His position was supported by Kutafin Moscow State University of Law, Inna Yershova: “MSLA has established a new Department, with “competition law” as the primary discipline for students.

Sergey Maximov, Deputy Head of FAS Legal Department, pointed out that “traces” of antimonopoly law exist practically across the entire procedural law.

“The prospects of advancing competition law is to devise the Competition Code of the Russian Federation, which will include not only the norms formalized in the Law “On Protection of Competition”, but also “pro-competitive provisions”, for example, the standards of competition development in Russia and its regions”, emphasized Sergey Maximov.

One of other important themes was drafting a new Chapter on unfair competition in the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”.

“Drafting a new Chapter on unfair competition is a new stage in developing the antimonopoly law. Analyzing judicial practice, each year there are several cases on unfair competition that reach the Presidium of the Supreme Arbitration Court. As a result of the position of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation on this issue, FAS proposed a concept of a new, long need-be Chapter”, pointed out Deputy Head of FAS Legal Department, Denis Gavrilov.

Konstantin Alyoshin, Deputy Head of FAS Anti-Cartel Department, discussed the public aspect of competition law, particularly, counteracting anticompetitive agreements. He pointed out that the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation comprises Article 178 that provides for criminal liability just for creating cartels. “As practice showed, however, some other anticompetitive agreements, for example, between tender organizers and bidders, also must be criminalized”, proposed Konstantin Alyoshin.

Concluding the Conference, participants agreed that all reports presented at the venue would be published in specialized journals.