APEC competition authorities discussed the powers of the antimonopoly bodies in conducting investigations

FAS representatives took part in a workshop on the “Powers of antimonopoly body in conducting investigations” organized by Peru Competition Authority under the frame of a session of APEC Working Group on Competition Policy

The expert at the workshop were special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), Denis Bin and Devon Mahoney; Deputy General Director on Investigations at Mexico Federal Economic Competition Commission, Carlos Garcia Cueva; as well as representatives of the US Federal Trade Commission and Peru Competition Authority.  

The workshop agenda included dawn raids, and recommended practices of interviews and interrogations. The experts presented special psychological methods of reading the body language, how to distinguish truth form lies, informal communications with suspects developed by FBI (US), used in investigations of corruption crimes and exposing especially dangerous  economic cartels. In the follow-up discussion participants looked into possibilities and restrictions of inspections carried out by APEC national competition bodies and specifics of interaction with the law enforcement bodies.  

Participants studied methods of collecting substantive evidence, specifics of work with evidence on e-carriers (personal computers, mobile phones). Under the modern conditions it is especially important that competition authorities are able to obtain data from cloud services, interact with internet-providers, can retrieve the required information from profiles in social media.

They looked into the issues of collecting and analyzing information in the course of unscheduled inspections, particularly, legal restrictions related to obtaining information in various jurisdictions. Legal and technical issues related to personal data and commercial secrets were covered. The workshop participants discussed interaction between competition authorities in cartel investigations and studied experience of coordinating activities carrying out dawn raids by the US and the European Commission.

Summing up the workshop, the competition authorities of the APEC economies   presented their experience of investigations in line with the national law.  A FAS representative gave a report informing the workshop participants that the Antimonopoly Service is a “full cycle” competition authority authorized to independently make decisions on opening cases, conduct investigations, request information on a case, carry out scheduled and unscheduled inspections, make decisions on the facts or absence of violations of antimonopoly law. Anticompetitive agreements are considered in Russia as one of the most serious violations of the antimonopoly law, while horizontal agreements (cartels) are criminal offences. Russian law establishes administrative and criminal liability for anticompetitive agreements.