ANDREY TENISHEV: BEHIND EACH PROCEEDINGS FROM OUR STATISTICS ARE CONSIDERABLY BIGGER CASES THAN EARLIER

FAS opened 384 cases on anticompetitive agreements in 2018

“Around 7 trillion RUB per year are spent for public procurement, around 15-16 trillion RUB annually – at tenders by state-run companies. Overall 1/3 GDP is allocated through public procurement. In this context 300-400 cases a year is not than much”, pointed out Head of FAS Anti-Cartel Department with regard to the scale of cartelization, speaking at the session on “Countering cartels: where practice is moving”, at a “Pravo.ru” conference.

He gave examples of cases on tenders of state-run companies and property sale tenders, and emphasized that “all auctions are transferred to e-trading sites, where tons of traces are left, which are easy to analyze”.  Andrey Tenishev expressed hope that property alienation tenders also will be put to electronic trading sites: “It will facilitate tender accessibility for participants and openness to control”.

Head of FAS Anti-Cartel Department also informed about the “Digital Cat” project. In his view, software already helps process data with particular filters, and the “cat” shall start collecting evidence.

Andrey Tenishev emphasized that a lot of sentences are passed on criminal cases related to competition restriction.

Deputy Head of FAS Anti-Cartel Department, Dmitry Artyushenko described developments of the leniency programme upon admitting cartel participation.

Deputy Head of FAS Anti-Cartel Department dew attention to the reduction of admissions: “In 2017, 118 admissions were filed in the entire system of antimonopoly bodies, including 29 to the Central Office. In 2018 - 97 admissions, of which 9 to the Central FAS Office”.

He highlighted the need to make amendments to the leniency programme, particularly, extrapolate criminal leniency to the staff of the companies that made admissions and unify administrative and criminal leniency.

Dmitry Artyushenko informed that a marker system should be adopted. “It should be specified in the law, who follows whom in the leniency procedure and the leniency transfer period if a company loses this right”, said Dmitry Artyushenko, discussing the importance to establish the sequence between those admitted cartel involvement. The draft law is already forwarded to the Government.

“The antimonopoly body will sign receipts on receiving the documents from self-admitted and conclude an agreement on cooperation with them”, explained the new procedure Dmitry Artyushenko.

Regarding changes to the criminal law, he clarified that “when relieved from liability under Article 178 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, it should become necessary to compensate income and damages caused only by this particular cartel member”. As for the necessary changes to the Code on Administrative Violations, Dmitry Artyushenko pointed out that currently turnover fines reach up to 4% and are the same for everybody. He concluded: “There should be fine reduction for those who assist the antimonopoly body in cartel investigations but were not the first to confess”.