MODERNIZING LAW IN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY: PROCOMPETITIVE APPROACHES IN DIGITAL ERA

Deputy Head of FAS Department for Control over Construction and Natural Resources presented FAS legislative initiatives in construction to the expert community during the “Digital Development” business-branch. The initiatives were devised by FAS jointly with the interested federal executive authorities

“Exercising control over actions of the authorities and network companies in construction, we see numerous problems of excessive and complicated administrative regulation leading to many infringements of the rights of businesses”, said Deputy Head of FAS Department for Control over Construction and Natural Resources David Akopyan.

To change the trend, FAS drafted amendments to the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” that expand the grounds for appealing actions of the authorities and network companies to the antimonopoly body. The draft law passed the first reading.

David Akopyan explained: “FAS also sees the need for a unified standard of public and municipal services in construction, and all these procedures must be in the electronic form.  Acts of the regions of the Russian Federation and, all the more, municipal bodies are often contrary to the federal law, and the requirements to submit the same documents to different bodies, somewhere in the e-form, somewhere – on paper and notary certified, are simply administrative barriers”.

Today, bodies at different levels and network companies do not interact properly, modern documentary flow does not exist, which indicates the importance of a transition to a common state digital platform in construction, enabling cooperation between the authorities, local self-government bodies and companies across the entire process cycle in town-planning relations.

“Economic operation in the sector is complicated due to excessive normative documentation at different levels, that are of imperative or tentatively voluntary nature, can be changed haphazardly and sometimes contract each other. We believe that the solution will be a federal register of normative documents: setting open, accessible, exhaustive requirements to economic entities and capital construction facilities”, pointed out the speaker.

These pro-competitive approaches to modernizing the law in the constriction sector are included in 2018-2020 “Road Map” for developing competition in the segments of Russian economy, the “Construction” section. Pro-competitive measures are devised by FAS jointly with the Ministry of Construction, the Ministry of Communications and the expert community to execute No.618 Order of the President of the Russian Federation on approving the National Competition Development Plan.