Brief on the draft Federal Law "On Introduction of Amendments into the Code of Administrative Infringements of the Russian Federation"

In June, 2006 the Government of the Russian Federation approved and took the decision to forward to the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation (Russian Parliament) the draft Federal Law «On Introduction of Amendments into the Code of Administrative Infringements of the Russian Federation» (hereinafter - CAI), prepared by the Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation.

The bill is aimed at perfection of the system of sanctions for infringement of the antimonopoly legislation. Alongside with introduction of the Federal Law «On Protection of Competition» which comes into force in 90 days from the moment of its official publication the amendments into CAI will allow not only to punish, but also prevent effectively anticompetitive actions. 

The bill, offered by the Federal Antimonopoly Service, will introduce into CAI principally new kind of fines for the infringement of the antimonopoly legislation. These fines will be calculated basing on the sum of the infringer's earnings from the realization of the goods (services) for one calendar year previous to the year in which the offence was revealed. At that, the maximal level of a fine can constitute to up to 2% for abuse of dominant position and up to 4% for cartel agreement from the total sum of an infringer's earnings. This will be adequate to economic damage caused by the infringement. Besides, direct administrative «corpus delicti», that envisage different sanctions for officials (fines or disqualification for the period of 3 years) and legal persons (calculated on the basis of the sum of earnings), will be introduced.

Apart from toughening and differentiation of sanctions for the infringement of the antimonopoly legislation, the cartel «leniency program» should become the most important innovation in CAI. The conditions of the «leniency program» will be strictly determined in CAI:

voluntary provision of the antimonopoly authority with the information about participation in the agreement or concerted actions restricting competition;

refuse to participate in such agreements or concerted actions;

provision of the antimonopoly authority with the information necessary for revealing of the fact of such agreements or concerted actions.

It is supposed that amendments to CAI will be approved in all readings by the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation (Russian Parliament) during the autumn Session till the end of year.