EEC LAUNCHES A PUBLIC INITIAITVE PROJECT

The purpose is to expose issues related to underdeveloped competition on the markets of medical equipment and medical products

The Eurasian Economic Commission and the antimonopoly bodies of the countries – members of the Eurasian Economic Union made a decision to launch a joint public initiative for competition protection in March 2019.

“This mechanism will start working, first of all, on the markets most susceptible to competition restriction – medical equipment and medical products”, a member of the EEC Collegium (Minister) for Competition and Antimonopoly Regulation, Marat Kusainov following a meeting with Heads of national antimonopoly bodies of EAEU in the “5+1” format on 27 February 2019.

The participants pointed out that the enforcement practice of EEC and the antimonopoly bodies of EAEU member-states shows a need to study medical equipment markets. The social importance of such markets for the population, their dependence on import in conjunction with some other factors means that these markets are vulnerable to competition restriction risks, particularly, anticompetitive actions of its largest participants.

Public initiative is a new mechanism for uniting efforts of national antimonopoly bodies of EAEU and EEC member-states for a broad informational campaign on the markets of medical equipment and medical products. The goal is to expose issues related to underdevelopment of competition on these markets.

Under the public initiative, consumers, business and the authorities can report on the signs of anticompetitive conduct, particular, when EAEU market is divided by the geographical principle, categories of buyers (sellers), fixing unreasonably high prices, imposing disadvantageous contract conditions, applying discriminatory conditions, unreasonable refusal to sell medical equipment and medical products.

Consumers and economic entities will be able to report issues with competition on the markets of medical equipment via web-sites of national antimonopoly bodies and EEC.

Information provided by market players under the frame of the public initiative will be analyzed and if signs of competition restriction are exposed, the Commission or the antimonopoly bodies of EAEU member-states initiate antimonopoly remedies.  

The public initiative must also stimulate voluntary elimination of violations of the general competition rules. Market players will be able to eliminate independently violations of competition rules under EAEU Treaty from their contractual and business practice.

“The public initiative is a part of pro-active EEC efforts. Joint work of EEC, the antimonopoly bodies of EAEU and the business community is an essential condition for maintaining competition on EAEU cross-border markets”, pointed out EEC Minister.

“The public initiative is a new area of EEC work towards competition protection. If successful, the project can be extrapolated to other socially important markets such as medicines market, telecommunications and so on”, emphasized Deputy Head of FAS Andrey Tsyganov.  

Background:

The Declaration of the public initiative to ensure equal conditions on the markets of medical equipment and medical products as well as a questionnaire are published on the official web-site of EEC.

These documents will be also published on the web-site of the national antimonopoly bodies of EAEU along with their readiness to joint the public initiative.

To exercise the rights for competition protection, the interested persons can take part in the meetings of Public Reception Office organized by EEC, obtain consultations on the general competition rules and consult on an individual basis. Announcements of such measures are published regularly on EEC site.