EXPERTS DISCUSSED THE SIZE OF LOSSES CAUSED BY VIOLATIONS OF THE ANTIOMONOPOLY LAW

“Today, in order to evaluatedamages we use the tentative rule that price increase on average by 10% due to violating the antimonopoly law. In our opinion, this approach is not perfect. We should create objective evaluation for calculating damages. This is one of the tasks of the today’s session.”

Deputy Head of FAS, Head of Competition Law Department at Kutafin State Law Academy, Sergey Puzyrevsky (Dr. of Law). He also highlighted another issue: civil law protection of the injured is poor or not provided at all. Citizen injured by the violations do not receive the due protection. We must found out what are the impeding factors”.

The discussion took place at the III International Research-to-Practice Conference – “Antimonopoly Policy: Science, Practice” on 5 December 2017.

Head of FAS Legal Department Artem Molchanov detailed No. 11 Explanations of FAS Presidium “On determining the size of damages inflicted as a result of violating the antimonopoly Law’.

In his opinion, recovering losses in the experience of foreign countries is an efficient mechanism. In Russian practice there are also successful examples of judicial recovery of losses. “The devised methods and explanations of FAS Presidium should help protect their rights at Court and facilitate correct damage calculations”, pointed out the speaker. He outlined the main factors that contribute to compensation of losses and the rules for calculating them.

“An efficient system of private actions is a very powerful weapon against monopolistic activity. We should develop the practice of losses recovery and improve the legal framework”, emphasized Artem Molchanov.

Grigory Chernyshov, an counsel and a Managing Partner of “Chernyshov, Lukyanov and Partners” Law Office discussed some practical aspects of private actions. Oleg Moskvitin, partner, Head of antimonopoly and tariff practices of “Muranov, Chernyakov and Partners” Law Firms highlighted the issues of recovering antimonopoly losses.

Other speakers included Ass. Prof. Maria Yegorova (Dr. Hab. Of Law)who chairs the Commission on Improving the Antimonopoly Law, at Moscow branch of the Association of Layers of Russia, a member of the Committee of the Chamber of Trade-and-Industry of the Russian Federation  on Safety of Business Activity; Ilia Zharsky, Managing Partner of VETA Expert Group; and Azamat Abdul’menov, Head of antimonopoly practice at DLA Piper.