LESYA DAVYDOVA: REGIONAL COOPERATION IS A GUARANTEE OF EFFICIENT ENFORCEMENT

Head of FAS Department for International Economic Cooperation was a speaker at the Global Competition Forum of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

FAS delegation took part in discussing advantages of regional competition agreements during OECD Global Competition Forum in Paris on 29 - 30 November 2018.

The Forum participants pointed out that in recent decades, due to accelerated globalization and extrapolating the laws on competition all over the world, regional cooperation has become an important tool for competition authorities for improving their enforcement and competition advocacy.

Head of FAS Department for International Economic Cooperation, Lesya Davydova, said:

“Regional cooperation facilitates harmonization of the law and approximating enforcement approaches of competition authorities, coherent actions, efficient suppression of anticompetitive practices and high-quality consideration of mergers and closes legal gaps minimizing duplicate effects in enforcement of the countries – members of regional associations. Our cooperation with the colleagues of EAEU member-states is a good example of such efficient collaboration”.

The Law “On Protection of Competition” has a norm that the provisions of the Law do not apply to antimonopoly violations on the cross-border markets, control over which falls under the competence of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC).

If upon an investigation, EEC decides to open a case on a cross-border market, persons involved in its investigation include, in particular, antimonopoly bodies of EAEU member-states.

“FAS  investigated cross-border antimonopoly cases on a regular basis, jointly with EEC performs on-site visits to the objects of the parties to the case, scheduled and unscheduled inspections in Russia and other countries”, reported the speaker.

According to Lesya Davydova, EAEU mechanisms of cooperation are the most efficient for Russia also because they provide for exchanging confidential information in the course of investigations.