ANDREY TSYGANOV: FAS INVOLVEMENT IN ICN ENFORCEMENT PROCEDURES PROJECT IS UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY TO EXCHANGE EXPERIENCES WITH FOREIGN COLLEAGUES

A session of the Steering Committee of the International Competition Network at OECD

The Steering Committee of the International Competition Network got together for a regular meeting on 5 June 2019 in Paris. FAS is a Committee member.

The participants highlighted the main results of the ICN work and analyzed the outcome of the ICN Annual Conference that took place in Cartagena (Columbia) in May 2019.

The Steering Committee discussed the prospective areas of further work, focusing on the items proposed for the agenda on the next ICN Annual Conference - 2020, which will be organized in Los Angeles (the US) on the basis of California University. The members pointed out at the challenging idea of inviting digital giants to the Conference, especially taking into account the goring economic digitalization and the fact that California is one of the key innovative clusters in the world where the largest high-tech companies are concentrated.

In the follow-up of the discussion, Hungary’s Competition Authority expressed an intention to host 2021 ICN Annual Conference in Hungary. ICN Steering Committee supported the initiative.

The Committee paid special attention to increasing the roles of NGOs in ICN work and engaging as many leading exports as possible in ICN events.

ICN Steering Committee discussed joint ICN project, one of which is the ICN Framework on Competition Agency Procedures, where FAS is one of the co-founders. During the discussion, co-chairs of the ICN project were elected including: the US Department of Justice, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and Germany’s Cartel Office. The co-chairs informed that after the project was presented at the ICN Annual Conference in Columbia, a draft standard form for presenting information about the rules and procedures by competition authorities of the member-states is already devised. It is expected that collecting and summarizing primary information will be completed by November 2019, before the regular meeting of OECD Competition Committee. The forms filled in by competition authorities and consolidated data including information about contract persons for each competition authority will be publically accessible on the official ICN web-site.

Further proposed joint actions under the project included the initiatives for collaboration between agencies in the process of filling in the forms, holding discussions and teleconferences to consider issues that antimonopoly regulators raised by the antimonopoly regulators in the course of working on the forms. As pointed out during the discussion, it will facilitate experience exchange, increase transparency and interlink practices of competition authorities involved in the project.

Continuing the discussion, Deputy Head of FAS Andrey Tsyganov suggested to divide the form for providing information into two parts: answers given by competition authorities – in the first part, and explanations and in the second part - comments about the information provided, the key issues that competition authorities encountered working on the project, references to the regulations guiding competition authorities in their enforcement efforts.

In the opinion of Andrey Tsyganov, it is a good idea to discuss the forms and information provided not only at discussions and teleconferences bur also at such large events as Round Table of ICN Working Groups, regional competition forums, etc.

“FAS involvement in ICN enforcement procedures project is a unique opportunity for exchanging experiences with foreign colleagues and achieving common understanding of the main problems and challenges of adapting procedural aspects of the work of competition authorities to the conditions of the new economy and searching and avenues to resolve them. For 30 years, the principles of openness and transparency have been fundamental for developing Russian competition policy, and are drivers for improving the antimonopoly law. It especially concerns establishing and observing fair procedures in investigating and considering antimonopoly cases. Adopting the Framework and its progressive implementation seems to be essential”, summed up Andrey Tsyganov.