FAS WON COMPETITION ADVOCACY CONTEST OF THE WORLD BANK AND ICN

The official award ceremony will take place on May 16 in Cartagena (Columbia)

FAS won 2018-2019 competition advocacy contest of the World Bank – International Competition Network (ICN) for “Promoting competitive digital infrastructure, digital platforms and digital finances”.

A reputable international panel of jurors found FAS project on “Abolishing national and intra-network roaming” the best in this nomination.

Authorities and companies from 50 countries took part in the contest.

The World Bank put the following comment on its web-site regarding the FAS achievement:

“The Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia (FAS) conducted an advocacy initiative to map and tackle restrictive regulations and anticompetitive behavior regarding roaming services in the country. Based on its findings, the FAS Russia engaged with both public and private stakeholders to (i) promote adequate regulation for interconnection between operators regarding national roaming charges, as well as (ii) to dissuade firms to abuse dominant positions by charging roaming fees from its own subscribers from different regions – including notifying players about a potential illegal conduct or even initiating enforcement cases. As a result, market players voluntarily changed their national roaming practices and dropped prices dramatically: between 2017 and 2018, fees for SMS reduced up to 2.5 times, for voice services up to 5 times, and for internet access up to 10 times. In December 2018, the Federal Law № 527-FZ amending the Federal Law on Communications was issued building on key FAS recommendations”.

Deputy Head of FAS Andrey Tsyganov commented: “FAS has participated in the World-Bank – ICN competition advocacy contest since 2015. It is already the third FAS win in the contest which proves that interacting with various groups of stakeholders, FAS continues improving its results as one of the most open competition authorities in the world”.

Background:

In 2015, FAS received an Honourable Mention for “Promoting pro-competitive reforms that foster growth and reduce inequality” with the project on “Guidelines” for non-discriminatory access to purchasing potassium chloride”, and was a winner in 2018 for “Creating markets for private sector development” with the project on “Competition development in public and municipal procurement of medicine by preventing individualization of procurement objects through insignificant secondary medicine properties”.