OREANDA-NEWS. May 08, 2014. The 13th Annual International Competition Network (ICN) took place in Marrakech (Morocco). At the opening ceremony delegates were welcomed by the President of Morocco Competition Council, Abdelali Benamour; Vice-President and Commissioner for Competition of the European Commission, Joaquin Almunia; and the Chair of ICN Steering Group, Andreas Mundt.

A delegation of the Federal Antimonopoly Service, led by Stats-Secretary, Deputy Head of FAS, Andrey Tsarikovskiy, took part in the Conference.

On the first day of the Conference, attendees took part at plenary and panel sessions and were presented a special project - “Antimonopoly Regulation of State-Run Enterprises” drafted by Morocco competition authority. A FAS representative was a co-moderator of the Section on antimonopoly enforcement over state-run companies.

On the second day of the Conference, Vladimir Kachalin, an Assistant to the Head of FAS, was one of the speakers at the Section on “Competition Culture”. He informed participants about the findings of a survey of competition authorities – ICN members on the state of such elements of competition culture in their countries as big business taking into account the antimonopoly standards, understanding of the antimonopoly norms by judiciaries, existence of legal firms in the country specializing in competition law, the role of academia in drafting antimonopoly laws, and some others.

At the Conference, FAS began fulfilling its duties as a co-chair of a Sub-Group on Enforcement Techniques (SG2) of ICN Cartel Working Group. At the section on determining the areas of further work FAS put forward proposals on the issue that were favourably received by participants and other co-chairs of Sub-Groups and Cartel Group in general. The proposals concerned mainly market screening for the purposes of cartel exposing. As one of new co-chairs of the Sub-Group, FAS officers had a meeting with other members and a wider range of representatives of antimonopoly authorities – ICN members interested in the work of the Sub-Group.

The Conference programme included 6 plenary and over 40 section sessions, focused on competition advocacy, anti-cartel efforts, control over mergers and abusing dominance.

Apart from taking part in the Conference, the FAS delegation had negotiations with representatives of competition authorities from some countries and international organizations. In particular, the issues of further development of cooperation in competition policy was discussed in detail during negotiations with the antimonopoly authorities of Israel, Japan, Ecuador, Asian Competition Network and BRICS countries. FAS signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Republic of Ecuador in the field of competition policy.