RESULT-ORIENTED ANTIMONOPOLY COMPLIANCE REFLECTS THE PRINCIPLES OF THE CONDUCT OF COMPANIES AND THEIR STAFF IN THE MARKET

The conclusion was made by the Conference of “Pravo.RU” informational portal

Recently FAS has been focused on prophylactics and violations prevention rather than punishments for them, stated Deputy Head of FAS Legal Department, Oksana Kuznetsova, at the Conference: “Compliance – 2018: Trends and the Best Practices”.

She said: “Statistics confirms that the number of violations is going down; the institution of warning proved to be efficient. 80% of our warnings are not appealed. It does not incur fines for companies and helps avoid long judicial proceedings”.

Oksana Kuznetsova outlined the pluses of antimonopoly compliance for companies. The law drafted by FAS gives a definition of this concept.  According to the draft law, its implementation should be voluntary.

Deputy Head of FAS Anti-Cartel Department, Mukhamed Khamukov, also was a Conference speaker. He added that if provisions on compliance are put on paper, it does not mean that they work.

“One company has antimonopoly compliance bit nobody is aware about it except the General Director. Another company has good documents, journals where the staff have to sign their awareness. Their behaviour, however, is completely different from what is written on paper and they violate the law on a systemic basis”, continued Mukhamed Khamukov.

He pointed out to ensure bona fide operations, companies need the following deterrent factors: moral principles and of the company leadership fair conduct on the market, adequacy and inevitability of punishment. In the absence of any of those factors, deterrence of unlawful or criminal activities is very complicated or impossible.

“At the same time, it is possible to say that result-oriented implementation of antimonopoly compliance reflects the moral principles of a company and its staff on the market or at the exchange”, explained the speaker.

Regarding antimonopoly risks of various collusions, Mukhamed Khamukov added that violations can happen in the course of entity’s communicating with competitors, counteragents, the authorities, particularly, government customers, interacting with competitors in various associations and in other cases. Therefore, compliance units must be careful in this respect to avoid violating the law.