SERGEY PUZYREVSKY: THE MORE VIOALTIONS WE PREVENT, THE MORE EFFICIENT OUR ANTIMONOPOLY REGULATION WILL BE

This is the purpose of the Antimonopoly Service under the frame of the control-and-supervision reform

“The competition authority is facing the tasks of improving the antimonopoly law under the conditions of digital economy, changing control-and-supervision functions, reforming natural monopolies and the system of tariff regulation”, said Deputy Head of FAS Sergey Puzyrevsky at the session on “Competition law in the system of modern education and science”, the III International Research-to-Practice Conference – “Antimonopoly Policy: Science, Practice” in Skolkovo.

“For the antimonopoly body the control-and-supervision reform started already in 2016, when the “forth antimonopoly package” came into effect. The package expanded the institutions of warnings and admonitions. It halved the number of antimonopoly cases”, informed Sergey Puzyrevsky. “Their structure has changed, however. Development of digital technologies has led to some companies abusing their market position”.

“For instance, in 2016 FAS finalized a case against “Google”. FAS found that the corporation violated the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” and fined it over 438 million RUB. In May 2017 “Google” transferred the fine to the federal budget. Thus, FAS restored competition on the market of mobile applications”, pointed out Deputy Head of FAS.

“To prevent such violations, however, amendments should be made to the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”. In FAS opinion, we must start with abolishing immunities with regard to intellectual activity that the antimonopoly law has today. Such immunities restrain competition development in the digital economy. The Government of the Russian Federation is discussing the solution”, stated Sergey Puzyrevsky.

Deputy Head of FAS discussed tariff regulation in detail. He highlighted several blocks of problems that should be solved immediately. First, absence of a system-wide approach and uniformity of tariff regulation acts.

Second, in the past decade tariff of natural monopolies, that traditionally are one of the hurdles for business, have been growing continuously.

Third, regional tariff regulators exceed the ceiling value specified in the social-and-economic forecast. It sets the growth of the electric power transmission tariffs at 3%, however; setting tariffs, the tariff bodies consider investment programmes of grid companies and ultimately exceed the ceiling value, which leads to a considerable tariff growth.

Sergey Puzyrevsky presented FAS proposals that will help develop competition in Russia. They include: adoption the National Competition Development Plan and a unified Law on the government tariff regulation, abolishing the Law on natural monopolies and transferring all competitive bidding in the electronic form.

The session participants discussed including “Competition Law” in the list of specialties for which advanced degree is awarded. Sergey Maximov, an assistant to Head of FAS gave 7 arguments in favour of including “Competition Law” on the list of academic specialties.