Sergey Puzyrevskiy: mergers and acquisitions take one of the leading positions in the work of Russian antimonopoly body

Deputy Head of FAS discussed the current legal institutions in the field of control over economic concentration at a Conference of German-Russian Association

On 23 June 2017 in Stuttgart (Germany) Deputy Head of the Antimonopoly Service, Sergey Puzyrevskiy was a speaker at a Conference of German-Russian Lawyers Association. The Conference focused on the law regulating business operations in Russia. Deputy Head of FAS discussed various aspects and trends in antimonopoly regulation of cross-border transactions and economic concentration in Russia.

“Mergers and acquisitions take one of the leading positions in the work of Russian antimonopoly body”, stated Sergey Puzyrevskiy. “As a classic law institution it is reflected in a separate Chapter of the Law “On Protection of Competition”.

Then Deputy Head of FAS outlined the main conditions for corporate approval and reorganization and detailed the procedure for filing petitions and consideration deadlines.  

Then Sergey Puzyrevskiy focused on control over the Law on foreign investments. He pointed out that the Law “On Protection of Competition” determines the list of strategic activities, the procedure for investigating petitions from foreign investors on preliminary approval of transactions and the consequences of non-compliance with the law.  

Deputy Head of Russian antimonopoly body described the work of the Government Commission for Control over Foreign Investments in the Russian Federation.

“The main objective of this body is to consider transactions of foreign investors on establishing control over strategic companies in terms of preliminary approval or refusals when there are threats to state security and national defence”, emphasized Sergey Puzyrevskiy.

He also gave results of investigating petitions received by FAS since 2008. In 9 of enforcement, Russian antimonopoly body received 465 petitions, of which the Government Commission investigated 221 cases: 208 were granted preliminary approvals and 13 cases were refused.

“In 2016 the total volume of foreign investments in the strategic community reached over 7 billion dollars”, concluded Sergey Puzyrevskiy.