OREANDA-NEWS. June 27, 2013. As part of a visit of a delegation of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) in Paris, Deputy Head of Russia’s antimonopoly authority, Anatoly Golomolzin, took part in session of OECD Competition Committee.

In the first part of the event the Committee briefly summed up the outcome of the meetings of Nos.2 and 3 Working Groups of the Committee that had taken place the day before; coordinators for Global Cooperation, the International Competition Network and UNCTAD also presented brief reports on the current activities.

Executive bodies of the Committee, in particular, pointed out that there are several mechanisms of international cooperation: integration and harmonization under the umbrella of international associations (for example, the European Union); specialized international bilateral agreements; formalized (umbrella type) regulatory cooperation (for example, between the US and Canada); under the framework of international organizations (such as OECD); under the framework of regional agreements (FTA); cross-state regulator networks (ICN, Basel); particular legal requirements on information exchange (for instance, on anti-criminal inter-state cooperation); introduction of international standards; applying “soft” law (principles and guidance); a direct dialogue and exchanging information of non-commercial character. According to the available data, around 90% of the mechanisms are associated with non-formalized exchange of non-commercial information (general information about events, exchange on the issues of methodology, etc.)

The key trends in this filed are expanding international cooperation simultaneously reducing the relevant costs, legitimizing the mechanisms and institutions of cooperation, transition from full harmonization of rules to more flexible regulatory mechanisms, increasing the role of multi-modal regulatory cooperation and private self-regulation.

One of the issues discussed by the Committee was summing up the practice of enforcing 1995 OECD Recommendations on international cooperation, and drafting relevant proposals on improving the Recommendations: excluding not much applied provisions; removing excessively formalized requirements to information disclosure, particularly, transition to the electronic forms; taking into account specifics of exchanging information, related to particular aspects of activities such as mergers, investigating cases on abusing market dominance, investigating cartels. It is also necessary to clarify the concept of confidential information, as well as the procedures for exchanging confidential information.

Both OECD members and non-members, including Russia, presented their 2012 competition reviews. The Committee heard 2012 competition reports of Mexico, Greece, Iceland, Poland, Ireland, and the USA. Greece paid special attention to the competition policy in the period of crisis. A representative of Greek competition authority pointed out that the number of cases on violating the antimonopoly law multiplied. For instance, investigating antimonopoly cases the competition authority issued 31 recommendations on fuel markets. Other priorities of the work of the competition authority included such markets as production and distribution of natural gas, basic consumer goods, construction materials, pharmaceuticals, and cable and satellite networks. Currently Greek banking sector is being restructured.

Iceland’s competition authority reported that due to the banking crisis special attention was paid to the financial market. In the telecommunication sector measures are being undertaken toward structural separation in retail and wholesale services. Several amendments to the antimonopoly law were adopted, particularly on expanding market analysis, similar to the ones passed in the UK and enabling to take into account oligopolistic market structure. The new mechanisms are applied, particularly, in investigations on the markets of oil products.

Poland passed amendments to the law, some of which are related to the leniency programme, procedural aspects of investigations, etc. The antimonopoly authority drafted a report on developing competition and protecting consumer rights on the gas market in Poland. In 2012 Polish competition authority also investigated 2 cases on abusing market dominance by PGNIG.

In the US annual report attention was paid, in particular, to the information on a case in the pharmaceutical industry, the decision on which was supported by the Supreme Court. The violators concluded an agreement on payments for refusing to enter generic drugs to the market. Earlier, the European Union investigated a similar case.