BALANCED APPROACHES TO REGULATORY SOLUTIONS ARE REQUIRED TO REGULATE TRANSACTIONS OF ECONOMIC CONCENTRATION

The specifics of antimonopoly control over mergers and acquisitions were discussed at the international scientific and practical conference on antimonopoly policy

Andrey Tsyganov, Deputy Head of FAS Russia, made a report at the session. He spoke about the implemented legislative initiatives regarding the assessment of economic concentration transactions in Russia, including the adoption of the "fifth antimonopoly package".

Besides, in the context of globalization, international cooperation is becoming particularly important in evaluating transactions. Cooperation of antimonopoly authorities of different countries in considering the same merger is beneficial not only for all participants in the transaction, but also for consumers. This interaction facilitate the search for missing information about the transaction, optimize the merger verification procedure by saving human resources, reducing the burden on companies, speeding up the process of reviewing the transaction and making the most balanced decision, avoiding or minimizing the asymmetry of remedies.

The session was attended by representatives of the business and legal community and Deputy Head of Egyptian Competition Authority Ahmed Abdelnasser Mohamed Abdelhamid Khatab and Director of the COMESA Competition Commission Willard Mwemba.

Within the framework of the international scientific and practical conference on antimonopoly policy, a session was also held in the BRICS+ format, dedicated to countering cartels, during which priority areas of anti-cartel activities were discussed.

According to Grigory Radionov, Head of the Anti-Cartel Department of FAS Russia, the authority has built an effective system for detecting collusion. To digitalize the process of identifying signs of concluding and implementing anticompetitive agreements, the authority cooperates with developers of various information systems and tools. In addition, FAS Russia is working on a draft of a new version of the automated information system Anti-Cartel 2.0.

Representatives of the competition authorities of Zambia and Saudi Arabia spoke about the specifics of anti-cartel law enforcement in their countries, including during unscheduled inspections and evidence collection. It was decided to further deepen cooperation, share experiences and practices in this area.