FAS work is of interest for recently formed competition authorities in the Asian-Pacific region

On 6 - 7 March 2017, Kuala-Lumpur (Malaysia) hosted an international conference “Competition law: managing the transformation process” organized by the Malaysia Competition Commission

The event objective was to help the interested parties to better understand and apply the antimonopoly law, discuss the modern trends in competition development and support international cooperation in light of some global issues.

International experts from South Africa, Australia, Portugal, Mexico, Germany, Hong Kong as well as representatives of the European Commission, OECD and the International Chamber of Commerce discussed the role of competition policy in their countries and shared opinions about the measures that can be undertaken by competition authorities to develop national economies and consumer well-being.

Deputy Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) Andrey Tsyganov presented FAS experience to the foreign colleagues. He made a report on “Antimonopoly policy and its main directions: the experience of the Russian Federation”. Andrey Tsyganov stated that today Russian antimonopoly law covers all fields of the economy and is based on the best world practices. The antimonopoly body is a mega-regulator that has a possibility to choose the most efficient method of influencing the market condition.

He emphasized that the antimonopoly authority undertakes continuous efforts to improve the antimonopoly law. For instance, in 2016 the “forth antimonopoly package” came into effect, cardinally reducing the number of opened cases and accelerating the process of eliminating the violations.  To illustrate, he gave some examples of cases involving federal executive bodies, the authorities of the constituent territories of the Russian Federation where the share of violations by the authorities is consistently reducing: from 53% in 2010 to 32% in 2016.

Andrey Tsyganov pointed out: “This is the first time when we took part in the event and we were happy to present information to our foreign colleagues on developing the antimonopoly law and enforcement practice in Russia. The efforts of the Federal Antimonopoly Service as one of the largest and most experienced competition authorities in the world, if we talk about the number of cases under investigation, is of enormous interest for the recently formed competition authorities that need serious professional training and determining the role of their bodies within the system of government bodies and the means of control and supervision in their countries. We are ready to offer them all necessary assistance and support”.