Andrey Tsyganov presented the results of EAEU efforts for developing common competition markets to the Federation Council

Andrey Tsyganov presented the results of EAEU efforts for developing common competition markets to the Federation Council

On 29 January 2016, the Federation Council held Parliament hearings on: “The Eurasian Economic Union – a year worked: the results of regulatory support”, conducted by the Chairman of the Committee of the Federation Council on International Affairs, Konstantin Kosachev.

Attendees and speakers included members of the Federation Council and executive bodies. The Federal Antimonopoly Service was represented by Deputy Head of FAS Andrey Tsyganov, who outlined the EAEU efforts in the field of competition policy.

Short-hand notes of the speech given by Andrey Tsyganov:

- First of all, dear colleagues, I would like to state that the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union incorporated all norms, without exceptions, of the agreements previously concluded under EAEU framework, particularly, the agreements on competition, procurement and natural monopolies. They became separate sections and appendices to the “Big” Treaty.

May I also point out that in 2015 came into force a special Agreement on the procedure for protecting confidential information and liability for disclosing it in the course of the Eurasian Economic Commission exercising its powers to control how the common competition rules are observed.

The Agreement coming into effect (ratified by the Federation Council in spring 2015) gave the Eurasian Economic Commission the powers to control abidance by the common competition rules on the cross-border markets.

I would like to emphasize that antimonopoly enforcement is one of the fields where the Eurasian Economic Commission – the EAEU executive body – was given substantial powers to independently review cases on violating the general competition rules, conduct investigations, issue determinations, impose fines and other sanctions for failure by market participants to follow the common principles and rules of competition.

Due to the specifics of the work of the antimonopoly bodies most information is confidential; therefore, the Agreement provided for not only the rules of handling such information but also liability of those officials of the Eurasian Economic Commission who have access to such information.

Currently efforts are being undertaken on surgical refinement of the Agreement, taking in consideration the fact that is was signed before the Treaty came into force. A draft protocol on making changes to the Agreement is at a stage of high readiness. Its ratification is being considering. There are different points of view, but I am convinced that should ratification be necessary, the Federation Council will also do it as the Agreement was ratified. As for adjusting Russian law in line with the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union, on 5 January 2016 the so-called forth antimonopoly package came into force. The package contains serious amendments to the Russian Law “On Protection of Competition”, which as our colleagues say, also passed the Federation Council without any difficulties.

The new law has a separate norm on non-dissemination of the provisions of Russian law to the relations regulated by the common competition rules on the cross-border markets, control over which is exercised by the Eurasian Economic Commission under the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union.

We think that as a result of the forth package coming into force Russian law fully conforms to the EAEU Treaty in the part of competition as well as the Model EAEU Law on Competition approved in 2013 by EAEU Supreme Economic Council of.

In spite of it, there are a number of issues indicating the need to develop regulatory support of integration. First of all, it concerns public procurement. True, we have the national regime, general principles and rules – it is a separate section of the Treaty, but there are also a lot of issues related to enforcement of those norms. For instance, electronic signature: without it businessmen cannot take part in public procurement in another country. At the moment, the issue of recognizing electronic signature is solved legislatively only in relations between two countries – Russia and Belarus. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia still have to amend their national laws so we can form a common market of public procurement.

Another issue that must be solved: selecting electronic sites and their regulations.  Finally, it is the language of procurement notices because our businessmen face the situations when it is quite difficult for them to read information in the national languages of the countries – members of EAEU with regard to the goods and services they are interested in.

Next issue concerns natural monopolies. In our opinion, there are colossal prospects of developing integration and general institutional conditions facilitating access of businessmen to the common infrastructure across all network markets in the Eurasian Economic Union, whether that be electric power industry, oil and gas transportation, or telecommunications. Steps forward to improve the rules for access to the infrastructure and modifying tariff regulation will make the life of businessmen in our countries easy. And the last point that I would like to cover – is intellectual property. We think that concluding a special agreement is a big step forward; however, one more issue is very important for us as the body responsible for competition in the Russian Federation. Nowadays a discussion about selecting the principle of exhausting the rights of intellectual property items has shifted to the platform of the Eurasian Economic Union. In Russia we used the national principle. Currently we are moving towards the regional principle of exhausting rights. FAS as an antimonopoly body is more attracted to a gradual approach to the international principle of exhausting the rights for intellectual property items because it opens markets and revives competition on them.

Thank you very much.

Reference:

In particular, Deputy Chairman of the Federal Council, llyas Umakhanov; an advisor to the President of the Russian Federation, a member of Russian Academy of Sciences, Sergey Glaziev; Stats-Secretary, Deputy Minister  of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, Viktor Evtukhov; the Head of the Federal Intellectual Property Service (Rospatent), Grigory Ivliev; Executive Vice-President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, the Chairman of the Council of the Association of Russian Banks, Alexander Murychev took part in the Parliament hearings.