ANDREY TENISHEV: COMPETITION AUTHORITIES SEE SIGNS OF VIOLATIONS AT AUCTIONS FIRST

The second day of the regional seminar-meeting of the Regional Offices of the FAS Russia (RO) in the Volga Federal District was devoted to the issues of interaction with law enforcement agencies and the legal positions of the Authority’s collegial bodies

On October 15, in the format of videoconference, Andrey Tenishev, Head of the Anti-Cartel Department, made a report on the interaction of the Authority's RO with law enforcement agencies in identifying and suppressing agreements that restrict competition.

He noted that the task of establishing interaction with law enforcement agencies in terms of implementing priority measures aimed at identifying and suppressing the activities of cartels was set by the President of the Russian Federation*.

Also an Interdepartmental program on identifying and suppressing cartels and other agreements limiting competition for 2019-2023 was approved by the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 1314-r.

“Do not treat formally the Antimonopoly cases under consideration. If collusions with the customer are revealed, look how the initial maximum contract price (IMCP) is formed, hold a meeting with law enforcement officers. Find out what happened to the contracts,” he said to colleagues from the RO of the FAS Russia. - If the IMCP was overstated, then the logical question is: where is the rest of the money? They could have gone into “cash”, and you need to look for who appropriated them. Such a scheme of work should not be difficult, since you have the data: at what prices are kindergartens and schools being built, paramedical and midwifery stations are purchased within the framework of National projects”.

The Head of the Anti-Cartel Department of the FAS Russia noted that today one of the most common fraud in procurement is the construction of objects under the guise of purchasing ready-made ones.

“It is necessary to understand in detail each individual case, especially when it comes to procurement within the framework of national Projects. This is money from the Federal budget aimed at implementing the tasks of national Projects on competitive terms. The FAS, the Prosecutor's office, the Federal Security Service and the Ministry of Internal Affairs can be very helpful to each other, because competition authorities are the first to see signs of violations in the auction,” said Andrey Tenishev.

Anton Teslenko, Deputy Head of the Anti-Cartel Department of the FAS Russia, made a report on the information analytical systems used by the FAS Russia in identifying anticompetitive agreements.

“We are continuing the implementation of our project on creation of the information and analytical system “Big Digital Cat”. Now we are working on creating mathematical models that would allow us to assess the probability of anti - competitive agreements in the presence of certain signs of violations, Anton Teslenko explained. - Besides, at the moment the system already contains active and ready-to-use modules for analyzing purchases and searching for links between business entities”.

He noted that at the same time, the service is working on connecting several additional modules to the program.

Speaking about the mechanisms for conducting anti-competitive investigations, the Deputy Head of the Anti-Cartel Department said that the service has recently continued to expand its evidence base.

“Both the central office of the FAS Russia and some territorial offices are increasingly resorting to new sources of evidence collection, namely: postal services, video hosting, social networks, online maps and others”, said Anton Teslenko. - These sources of information can give impetus to investigations when evidence from traditional resources is carefully camouflaged  or removed by violators”.

In conclusion, the speaker encouraged representatives of RO to more actively contact their colleagues from the Anti-Cartel Department of the FAS Russia for any methodological help in identifying and suppressing anti-competitive agreements, including those using digital technologies.

Mariana Matyashevskaya, Deputy Head of the Legal Department of the FAS Russia, told about the legal position of collective bodies of the FAS Russia.

“It is very important for the service to achieve uniformity of the law enforcement practice of the application of antimonopoly legislation throughout the country. For these purposes, there is an institute of intradepartmental appeal, as well as a mechanism for analyzing and generalizing practice, following which the Presidium of the FAS Russia approves clarifications on the application of antimonopoly legislation”, said Maryana Matyashevskaya.

Moreover, the Presidium of the FAS Russia annually approves reviews of the practice of applying antimonopoly legislation by collegial bodies, which includes the most important practice-forming positions based on the results of the revision of decisions and orders in all categories of cases on violation of antimonopoly law.

“Both the explanations of the Presidium and the decisions of collegial bodies and its compilation in the form of reviews provide significant assistance to both law enforcement officers in Regional Offices and participants in commodity markets. This increases the efficiency of the service as a whole, and the approaches of the antimonopoly authorities in various situations become transparent and accessible to all participants in legal relations”, emphasized the speaker.

For reference:

* List of Instructions of the President of the Russian Federation on the implementation of priority measures aimed at identifying and suppressing the activities of cartels No. 1525 of August 5, 2017