THE NATIONAL COMPETITION DEVELOPMENT PLAN FORMALISES THE INSTITUTION OF CONSUMERS

FAS actively includes consumer advice in the work of its collegial bodies

“At the end of December 2017, the Order of the President of the Russian Federation approved 2018-2020 National Competition Development Plan. It is a document of strategic planning that determines the basic areas of the government policy towards competition development”, said Deputy Head of FAS Department for Regulating the Electric Power Industry, Alexei Voronin, opening the Round Table on “Tariff Regulation 2018: the prospects of developing enforcement”.

Regarding tariff regulation, he pointed out that after transferring the powers in this segment to FAS, the Antimonopoly Service revealed such a negative effect as tariff discrimination.

“The situation has changed to the better. However, there are some incidents. We will be working on it. If grid companies work in similar conditions, the tariffs also should be compatible. There were cases when they differed significantly. Some companies were given tariffs significantly higher than the same organizations under comparable conditions”, stated Alexei Voronin.

He also shared the plans for 2018.

Alexei Voronin added: “We are now elaborating a mechanism for implementing the reference costs for grid companies. Applying this mechanism will enable a transparent and clear pricing procedure, which is convenient to all process participants: from regulated organizations to consumers”.

Another FAS speaker at the Round Table was Head of FAS Legal Department Artem Molchanov. He described the joint efforts of the antimonopoly authority and the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation.

“On 27 December 2016, the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation passed a Ruling applicable to judicial cases on resource payment if a normative legal act that sets a regulated price is invalidated”, reported Artem Molchanov. In his opinion, if a normative legal act is invalidated due to overrated tariffs, consumers, that paid in good faith to the resource supplier for the costs, can recover overpayment, particularly, for the period when Court recognizes that the normative legal act is invalidated.

“This is the document enabling unified approach of Courts to tariff regulation disputes and will be taken into consideration by the regulators in tariff decision-making”, stated Head of FAS Legal Department. “Regarding pricing, FAS Presidium issued an explanation on applying antimonopoly and tariff laws to these relations, the purpose of which also is to increase regulatory transparency and FAS approaches to investigating such cases”.