ANTON TESLENKO: COMPLIANCE SHOULD BE AIMED AT PREVENTING VIOLATIONS, NOT HIDING EVIDENCE

Representative of the FAS Russia told at an event in Moscow how to protect a company from corporate fraud and prevent violations of antimonopoly legislation

On September 17, 2020 the Conference “Corporate fraud and corporate investigations: theory and practice” was held in Moscow.

Participants discussed methods of protecting companies from fraud, technologies for detecting it, features of conducting complex investigations, correct and effective application of their results, as well as individual know-how that can protect businesses from illegal interference from outside and inside. Anton Teslenko, Deputy Head of the Anti-Cartel Department, presented the FAS Russia at the event.

The speaker told about the work carried out by the Agency to identify and suppress cartels and other anti-competitive agreements, gave practical examples of the most frequent violations, and also commented on the legislative initiatives of the FAS in countering cartels.

“Over the past few years, there has been a significant change in the state policy in terms of both the development of competition and its protection, including through criminal law means. In this context it was significant that the interministerial program of measures to identify and suppress cartels¹ was approved in June 2019, which provided for the consolidation of efforts of antimonopoly and law enforcement agencies not only in the fight against anti-competitive agreements, but also in the prevention of relevant violations of the law. At the same time, I note that illegal encroachments on competition, both by representatives of economic entities and government officials, are covered by a wide list of crimes, and criminal law protection of competition today is not limited to the use of exclusively “traditional” article 178 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation,” stressed out Anton Teslenko.

The representative of the FAS Russia highlighted the implementation of antimonopoly compliance as a means of preventing violations of antimonopoly legislation.

“The concept of antimonopoly compliance is widely spread abroad, and in March of this year, the concept and basic requirements for antimonopoly compliance appeared in the Russian Law on Protection of Competition. Besides, the law provides for the right of a company to submit to the FAS Russia a draft internal act regulating antimonopoly compliance to determine whether such an act meets the requirements of the law, and a number of companies have already used this right. At the same time, it is important to understand that compliance should be implemented not in order to hide the “traces” of the violation, but in order to prevent it,” concluded Anton Teslenko.

¹ Interministerial action program for identifying and suppressing cartels and other agreements restricting competition for 2019-2023.