Ekaterina Uryukina: FAS summarizes enforcement practice that will prevent typical violations of the Law on Trade

Disclosing information will create conditions for non-discriminatory access of suppliers to retail chain

On 31 May 2017, FAS completed a regional workshop in Alushta.

On the second day of the event, participants discussed in detail the most controversial issues of the Law on Trade (No.381-FZ Federal Law) as well as state and municipal preferences.

Deputy Head of FAS Department for Control over Social Sphere and Trade, Ekaterina Uryukina explained the provisions of No.381-FZ Federal Law in view of the amendments. She pointed out that the antimonopoly rules cover retail chains regardless of the market share since they possess particular market power.

Ekaterina Uryukina said: “It should be noted that upon FAS proposal immunities for small business were introduced. Therefore, some provisions of the Law on Trade do not apply to representatives of small business”.

Then she moved to inspections of retail chains. “As of March 2017, FAS and its regional bodies carried out 701 inspections of retail chains. Facts on signs of violating the antimonopoly rules and the Law on Trade were exposed in 69 subjects of the Russian Federation. For instance, out of more than 11,000 analyzed contracts across all retail chains, 1 261 violations were found, which accounts for 11% of the total number of the inspected contracts. Currently we are completing the inspections and are summarizing the data”, emphasized Ekaterina Uryukina.

She presented FAS enforcement practice and described cases against large retailers such as “Achan”, “Lenta”, “Metro Cash & Carry” and others. “Courts supported approaches of the antimonopoly body to proving discriminatory conditions created by retail chains for suppliers of food products”, said Ekaterina Uryukina.

Denis Laktionov, Unit Head, Crimea OFAS gave an example of enforcement of No.381-FZ Federal Law in Sebastopol and in the Republic of Crimea. He stated: “The inspections showed that some retail chains failed to timely undertake measures to comply with the Law on Trade, for instance, in the part of publishing information on their web-site about choosing suppliers. Crimea OFAS drew up inspection acts and are opening cases against retail chains that breached the law”.

Head of Public Services and Preferences, FAS Fiscal Control Department, Inna Aivzyan, highlighted some pressing issues of granting public and municipal preferences based on the practice of coordinating applications for granting preferences.

She underlined that the authorities should grant preferences to support small and medium companies under the Federal Law “On developing small and medium business in the Russian Federation” and the Strategy for developing the SME sector in Russia by 2020.

Inna Ayvazyan pointed out: “Granting preferences is a competition-restrictive acts by the authorities so it should be exercised strictly for the purposes and under the procedure provided for by the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition””.

Head of Crimea OFAS, Timophey Kuraev thanked representatives of FAS Central Office for the methodological support and added that OFAS has several decisions on approving public and municipal preferences but it concerned exceptions. He also pointed out the importance of restoring order in property relations, especially in the housing–and-utility sector, where regulation is based on separate acts and directly affects the tariffs.