Brief on the interaction between FAS Russia and the Ministry of Interior of the Russian Federation in the sphere of the antimonopoly control
The Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation (FAS Russia) carries out the struggle against the monopolism only within the frameworks of the administrative and civil legislation and has no powers to conduct investigations of infringements of the antimonopoly legislation within the frameworks of criminal - legal proceedings as well as to apply operational and investigation measures on revealing of these infringements. These powers are granted only to the Office of Public Prosecutor and to the Police. Absence of these powers in FAS Russia didn't allow at full scale revealing the infringements operatively and suppressing it in due time using the whole legal capacity.
In this connection the joint normative and legal act of the Ministry of Interior of the Russian Federation and the Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation «Regulation on the procedure of interaction between the Ministry of Interior of the Russian Federation and the Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation» was issued on December 30, 2004.
Pursuant to this act the special sub-divisions were created in the structure of the Department for Economic Safety of the Russian Ministry of Interior - the special Department for the struggle against crimes in the sphere of antimonopoly legislation and the Interdepartmental Working Group of FAS Russia and Russian Ministry of Interior on organization of interaction and coordination of joint actions on the struggle against the violations of the antimonopoly legislation. The high level officials and experts from the Ministry of Interior and FAS Russia are the members of this Working Group. Similar Interdepartmental Working Groups were created at the level of the Regional Offices of FAS Russia and Departments of Internal Affairs of the Ministry of Interior in all subjects of the Russian Federation.
Within the framework of the Regulation on the procedure of interaction between FAS Russia and the Ministry of Interior the plans of joint activity are elaborated, joint examinations of the observance of the antimonopoly legislation in commodity and financial markets are conducted. At realization of joint actions on revealing of the signs and facts of infringements of the antimonopoly legislation the responsibilities of antimonopoly' authority officials and police officers are divided in the following way: antimonopoly' authority officials conduct the official collection of evidence and the police officers realize the complex of operational and investigation measures. In case of revealing the signs of crime in an infringer' actions the police initiates the criminal case and conducts investigation within the frameworks of the criminal - legal proceedings.
Using this method of cooperation the Ministry of Interior of the Russian Federation and FAS Russia have organized and conducted joint actions on revealing the infringements of the antimonopoly legislation in the markets of meat-processing production (examination of the activity of the largest meat-processing enterprises in Moscow). In the result of these examinations the signs and facts of concerted practices aimed at unreasonable increase of the prices for their production were revealed. Besides, the examination of the observance by the Russian Joint-Stock Company «Russian Railways» of the antimonopoly legislation and the legislation on natural monopolies when realizing container transportation were organized. In the market of financial services, the activity of commercial banks in Moscow and other regions of Russia was checked for unfair competition.
The signs and facts of violations of antimonopoly legislation, revealed during joint examination, are operatively documented, and the sanctions stipulated by the law are applied to infringers in due time.
Besides, FAS Russia and the Ministry of Interior realize regular exchange of information on the subject of their joint activity, hold joint workshops for the officials of the antimonopoly authority and Departments for Internal Affairs on studying the methods and tactics of the struggle against the monopolistic activity, organize regular working meetings and joint sessions where necessary management decisions in the sphere of suppression of the anti-competitive infringements are elaborated.
At present the officials of the Ministry of Interior of the Russian Federation are included into the structure of the Commissions on consideration of the violations of the legislation on state procurements. This allows forwarding the cases on the infringements, revealed with their participation, for further investigation in law enforcement authorities.