Andrey Tsyganov shared experience of cooperation between Russia and OECD with the Eurasian Economic Commission

FAS active involvement in the work of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development helped improving Russian antimonopoly law and enforcement

Deputy Head of FAS Andrey Tsyganov discussed the issue at a workshop on “Cooperation between EAEU member-sates with OECD in the context of developing EAEU integration agenda. Opportunities for using the best OECD practices in EAEU” on 20 April 2017.

He reminded of the history of productive cooperation between Russia and OECD in applying state-of-the-art competition tools. In 1995 Russia was granted an observer status at OECD Committee on Competition Law and Policy and in July 2013 the Competition Committee recognized that Russian competition policy confirms to OECD high standards. Russia was given recommendations on improving the state of competition, which were executed.

Talking about implementation of OECD practice in the member-states of the Eurasian Economic Union, Andrey Tsyganov emphasized: “The national antimonopoly bodies of EAEU economies can definitely use the European model: the national law in the European Union has a clearly delineated sphere of application; at the same time, each antimonopoly body of the European Union is unique and has its own powers. Moreover, the national bodies can apply EU competition law independently”.

Among the recommendations to the Eurasian Commission, Deputy Head of FAS pointed out at the need to develop competition enforcement practices on EAEU cross-border markets.

“There is a long-standing need for global mechanisms of efficient combating against international anticompetitive practices, and EAEU member-states can initiate it in a coherent manner”, he pointed out discussing the ongoing work on the International Anti-Cartel Convention and the Toolkit to counter restrictive business practicesof transnational corporations and cross-border violations of the competition rules.

Andrey Tsyganov reminded that the Convention was approved under the frame of current “5+1” efficient format of interaction between the Heads of the antimonopoly authorities of EAEU member-states and the EEC Minister. He concluded: “We believe that the Eurasian Economic Union can become a good platform to advance the Anti-Cartel Convention, the kernel, around which the efforts on its promoting will be built up”.