Joint efforts of BRICS competition authorities will “reload” the system of antimonopoly regulation

On 27 September 2016 an international event – “The Russian Competition Week” included a Joint Session of the BRICS Coordination Committee on Antimonopoly Policy and the BRICS Working Group for Research on Competition Issues in the Food Market.

The session was opened by Deputy Head of FAS Andrey Tsyganov. He reminded that in May 2016 at St Petersburg International Legal Forum the Heads of BRICS competition authorities signed a Memorandum of Understanding for cooperation in the field of competition policy, in accord with which the parties agreed to form Working Groups to study competition issues on the socially important markets.

The food products market is one of the most important in social terms; that is why it should be studied in the first instance, and competition issues should be solved by joint efforts.

The parties emphasized that the efforts undertaken by the Law and Development Institute of High School of Economics – Skolkovo and FAS. The project objective is to form the first such detailed market analysis in terms of antimonopoly policy on BRICS food products market.

The project team, comprising FAS representatives, has undertaken unprecedented efforts to collect information showing, for instance, that special attention should be paid to studying the balance between the competition law and intellectual property as well as the concentration level of the existing production chains.

A preliminary report was presented with a review of some problematic issues facing the antimonopoly bodies regulating food products markets as well as analyzing various factors that underlie positive trends in competition development.

“We are confident that the work done will facilitate productive cooperation between BRICS antimonopoly bodies under the frame of the Food Products Working Group”, emphasized Andrey Tsyganov.

The Working Group approved in general the Action Plan until the end of 2017. The final report on the joint project will be presented at the next conference of BRICS competition authorities in Brazil in 2017.