IGOR ARTEMIEV: WE DO NOT WITHDRAW INTO NARROW THEMES IN OUR WORK

Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service said about it on 18 September 2019 at BRICS Coordination Committee on Antimonopoly Policy – “10 years of cooperation between BRICS competition authorities: results and prospects”.

“To counter arbitrary conduct and violations by transnational corporations, our coordination in merger consideration is essential. To this end, we should intensify our efforts even more, particularly, in the virtual space”, pointed out Head of FAS.

Igor Artemiev suggested establishing BRICS Centre for training competition experts on the basis of FAS Centre for Education and Methodology in Kazan.

Deputy Head of FAS Andrey Tsyganov reminded that still there are specific problems of exposing and suppressing cross-border cartels: for example, deadlines for case investigation and procedural aspects differ.

“That is why strengthening international and regional cooperation is so important, and BRICS is a successful example. As one of the possible ways to resolve the issue, we see promoting and adopting an international document that formalizes particular mechanisms of exposing and countering cross-border cartels”.

“We plan to prolong indefinitely the Memorandum of Understanding in the field of competition policy. It is very important. At the same time, our cooperation has reached a new, more advanced level”, said Deputy Head of FAS Andrey Tsarikovskiy. “Perhaps, the time has come to conclude an Intergovernmental Agreement on Cooperation between BRICS competition authorities that will reinforce collaboration between our countries, particularly, in investigations of economic entities that have an adverse impact upon competition in our states”.

Igor Artemiev specially thanked the collages for robust and productive work under the frame of the Working Groups on studying competition on particular socially important markets:

“This experience shows that we have a good understanding of not only each other but also the global world”.

Deputy Minister of the State Administration for Market Regulation of the People’s Republic of China, Madame Gang Lin pointed out that 4 current BRICS Working Group for studying competition issues cover the sectors that have the most influence upon the overall development of BRICS countries and suggested to deepen the efforts in the part of digitalization and precision engineering, as well as pharmaceuticals and healthcare.

Madame Gang Lin also put forward an idea to continuously use the logo of the VI BRICS Competition Conference at all further events in this format.

President of Brazil’s Administrative Council for Economic Defence (CADE), Mr. Alexandre Baretto de Souza supported the proposal to develop interdepartmental cooperation, stating that “it is exactly what differs our organization from others – each competition authority independently makes a decision whether to participate in particular Working Groups in accord with its interests”.

Chairperson of the Competition Commission of India, Mr. Ashok Kumar Gupta informed that the Commission has launched the work on studying the structure of car manufacturing markets in BRICS and suggested to organize a workshop on the issue in 2020 to discuss a draft expert report on competition problems in BRICS automotive sector.

Commissioner Tembinkosi Bonakele, South African Competition Commission, highlighted the significance and topicality of interaction between the Working Groups and drew attention to the concerns about possible difficulties in different jurisdictions due to total digitalization and an associated heterogeneity of the regulatory environment.