Anatoly Golomolzin discussed the state of competition in Russia at an international conference in Chisinau
On 16 March 2017, a FAS delegation led by Deputy Head of FAS Anatoly Golomolzin took part in the “Competition Council: 10 years of work: progress, objectives and prospects” International Conference.
The Chairman of the Parliament of the Moldova Republic, Andiran Candu, opened the plenary session. He praised highly the efforts of Moldova Competition Council in the past ten years and outlined the strategic objectives of the Council in the term, particularly, on devising the National Competition Development Programme and state aid in Moldova.
The welcoming address to the participants was also given by Head of the Delegation of the European Union to the Moldova Republic, Pirkka Tapiola.
The key speaker was the President of Moldova Competition Council, Viorica Carare. She said: “I remember the year 2007 with excitement, when everything just started, the first investigations, the first fines. A lot have been done in those years, the laws on competition and state aid were established and enforcement practice was formed. Evaluating our work, it should be emphasized that in 2008 only 33% of our decisions were supported by Courts; currently it is 85%. At the same time we have always worked and are working in the public interests and we are moving forward with confidence”.
The Conference had various sections; attendees included representatives of the competition authorities from Armenia, Austria, Belarus, the Czech Republic, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Latvia, Russia and Tajikistan.
At the session on the new tasks of competition law and policy the Head of FAS delegation informed the conference about the present state of competition law and policy in Russia, detailing the practice of implementing and applying the institutions of warnings and admonitions; changes in FAS performance indicators due to their introduction; judicial practice; the results of law enforcement efforts in the markets of pharmaceuticals and IT-technologies. Anatoly Golomolzin also highlighted some issues of tariff regulation and the main objectives set for FAS in that field.
Participants showed a significant interest in the information given by Deputy Head of FAS on organizing exchange trading with oil and developing an oil benchmark. Anatoly Golomolzin pointed out that “efforts in this field in Russia to a considerable extent were facilitated by the results of the activities of the International Working Group on studying pricing on oil and oil products, led by the antimonopoly bodies of Austria and Russia”.
The reports by the key speakers were followed by a Q&A session, where Vice- President of Moldova Competition Council, Emil Gutu, asked to comment on the FAS initiative of draft and adopt the Anti-Cartel Convention.
Answering the question, Anatoly Golomolzin stated: “In 1910 Roosevelt said that concentration of business and cartels reached a catastrophic scale. Unfortunately, a century later the problems have grown worse once again, but now unfair economic entities use new methods and means of cartelization at the global scale. In this situation the antimonopoly bodies should consolidate their efforts to counter this most dangerous violation of the antimonopoly law”.
Commenting on the questions from the Moldavian colleagues, Head of FAS Department for International Economic Cooperation, Lesya Davydova outlined the main objective of drafting the Convention and its basic elements, and said that the issue will be discussed in more detail at the 46th ICAP [the Interstate Council on Antimonopoly Policy] session.