Russia continues pursuing a professional dialogue with experts from European countries

“In spite of a difficult political and economic situation FAS constantly cooperates with the colleagues from competition authorities of the EC countries and we are confident that our opinion is authoritative”, said Deputy Head of FAS Andrey Tsyganov on 27 June 2016 at the plenary session of the IX Annual Moscow Forum of Business Partners – “Russia – Europe. Cooperation Without Borders”.

He pointed out that the market of the Russian Federation and the Eurasian Economic Union remains attractive for foreign investors and businessmen. Undoubtedly, it is not easy for foreign companies on an unknown Russian market especially if these are not large companies with sufficient resources for prompt advancement on the markets and solving the emergent issues. One of the main objectives of small and medium companies that want to work in Russia is to avoid mistakes caused by poor understanding of Russian administrative and economic realities and the rules for doing business in Russia as well as lack of knowledge of Russian law, particularly that falls under FAS competence.

FAS is a multifunctional body and regulates a wide range of legal relations in various market fields (competition, public procurement, advertising, tariffs, foreign investments) and frequently exposes violations of Russian law by foreign companies Sometimes companies, particular, large and reputable, are nontransparent in selecting Russian counteragents, abusing the intellectual property rights, openly blackmail government customers in public procurement and use other unfair methods of doing business on Russian market. Such facts inevitably lead to opening cases, fines and other remedies. FAS, however, develops softer impact measures. “FAS strongly supports developing codes and standards of fair business practices and we are very happy that together with the Association of European Business we have been able to implement such Codes in the car manufacturing and pharmaceutical industries. We support efforts of business towards antimonopoly compliance, which is a system of in-house rules and procedures designed to suppress possible violations of the antimonopoly law from within and prevent harming Russian consumers and companies” pointed out Andrey Tsyganov. “We are ready and take advantage of any opportunity to meet foreign investors directly and explain to them how to do business in Russia how to prevent violating the law. To this purpose, we use any discussion platforms both in Russia and abroad”.

According to the speaker, Russian antimonopoly body solves another important issue: creating equal and fair competitive conditions directly on Russian market.  Entering Russian market, foreign companies can face incorrect methods of doing business by Russian competitors (unfair competition, unreliable advertising, anticompetitive agreements, refusals to cooperate), natural monopolies (discriminatory conditions for access to infrastructure, overrated tariffs), as well as excessive administrative barriers and privileged conditions for particular companies”, stated Andrey Tsyganov.

FAS considers annually several thousand cases on various violations of the antimonopoly law, and adding cases on the laws on procurement, advertising and trading – several thousand cases.

“We always adhere to the neutrality principle and pay similarly careful attention to petitions form Russian as well as foreign businessmen. Jurisdiction of a violator does not matter for us: the investigation and punishments will be the same. The same neutral and unbiased position applies to foreign investors in spite of difficult economic realities”, emphasized Andrey Tsyganov. According to him, after economic sanctions were introduced, some experts expressed opinions on inevitably tightening antimonopoly enforcement and enforcement of the law on foreign investments for cross-border mergers and acquisitions. It did not happen, however, and the attitude of Russian competition authority to foreign investors remains the same.

Attendees included First Vice-President of “OPORA RUSSIA” NGO of small and medium business, Vladislav Kurochkin; the President of Moscow Association of Businessmen, Andrey Podenok; the Chairman of the Finances and Investment Committee, the Association of the European Business, Executive Director of “Ernst & Young”, Stuart Lowson; the Minister for Economy, the Andalusia Government, Spain, Gaspar Lianas, the President of the “Italian Industries Confederation” in Russia, Enrico Ferlengi; General Director of the Association of the European Business, Franc Schauff, etc.