The antimonopoly bodies of Russia and Uzbekistan strengthen cooperation

On 14 February 2017, Deputy Head of FAS, Andrey Tsyganov, had a meeting with Deputy Chairman of the State Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan for Privatization, Demonopolization and Development of Competition, Rustam Aminov.

Deputy Head of FAS informed his Uzbek colleagues on the latest changes in antimonopoly and tariff regulation in the Russian Federation, including transfer of the tariff-regulation functions to Russian antimonopoly body, and the amendments to the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” under the frame of the “forth antimonopoly law” and the “anti-crisis package”, which will reduce the burden upon small companies in Russia.

He also discussed the most significant cases instigated by FAS recently, specially highlighting the case against “Google”.

In his turn, Rustam Aminov informed the Russian colleagues about current developments of competition and antimonopoly regulation in Uzbekistan, the history of establishing the State Committee, its powers and functions, cases investigated by the Committee and development of the competition law in Uzbekistan. He emphasized that Uzbekistan competition authority analyses socially important goods markets regularly and pays thorough attention to the efforts in such spheres as consumer rights protection, control over observing the advertising law, protecting intellectual property rights, work with complaints filed by the population.

Andrey Tsyganov outlined the current work of the Interstate Council on Antimonopoly Policy (ICAP) and the Headquarters on Joint Investigations of Violations of the Antimonopoly Law in the CIS Member-States (the Headquarters) at ICAP: approving a FAS drafted Report “On developing competition policy and the role of antimonopoly bodies in solving social-and-economic issues” (the experience of the Russian Federation)” by the CIS Economic Council. He pointed out that the Report gives a detailed description of the changes in competition policy in the Russian Federation and is of a significant result-oriented interest for the CIS member-states. Deputy Head of FAS said that ICAP plans and will discuss similar Reports from the antimonopoly bodies of the CIS member-states and called upon the Uzbek colleagues to take part in these efforts.

The parties emphasized the progressive nature of cooperation between competition bodies lately, including participation of experts and specialists in training events, workshops and conferences, both in Uzbekistan and in Russia.

The FAS delegation informed the Uzbek colleagues about the main aspects of international activity of the Federal Antimonopoly Service, particularly, developing professional cooperation between the antimonopoly bodies to prevent restrictive cross-border business practices under the frame of BRICS and UNCTAD.

Finally, the parties expressed hope for further strengthening of bilateral cooperation as well as developing joint efforts on various international platforms.

“Russia and Uzbekistan have more than the 20-year history of cooperation and interaction in the field of competition protection and development. I would like to especially emphasize the historic multifunctional nature of the work of our competition bodies, enabling to use diverse tools of state regulation most efficiently to create competitive conditions on the markets”, pointed out Andrey Tsyganov.

The parties also decided to conclude an inter-departmental Memorandum of Understanding in the field of competition policy, which will be signed in the near future.

The issues of developing competition between the antimonopoly authorities of Russia and Uzbekistan were on the agenda of the Inter-Government Commission on Economic Cooperation between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Uzbekistan on 15 February 2017 in Tashkent attended by FAS.