FAS WON A CONTEST OF THE WORLD BANK – ICN

The agency is a winner for “Promoting competitive digital infrastructure, digital platforms and digital finance” with the project for “Abolishing national and intra-network roaming”

2018-2019 competition advocacy awards of the World Bank – the International Competition Network were presented on 15 May 2019 at the Annual ICN Conference in Cartagena (Columbia). More than 50 competition authorities took part in the contest.

Deputy Head of FAS Andrey Tsyganov, who received the award on behalf of the Antimonopoly Service, commented the achievement:

“The win in a prestigious contest of the World Bank – ICN undoubtedly is important for FAS. The award confirms that FAS practice of competition advocacy is an example of the best experience among numerous competition agencies that participated in the contest, and this practice concerns conduct of big companies on essential, socially-significant markets. FAS will continue robust efforts to solve competition problems in close cooperation with a wide range of stakeholders, combining advocacy, enforcement and legislative initiatives, and we are always happy to exchange experience with all competition authorities of the world”.

After deciding on the awards, he World Bank placed a comment about FAS achievement on its official web site:

“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 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”.