OREANDA-NEWS. March 24, 2014. The Institute of State and Law, the Russian Academy of Sciences, with involvement of the Federal Chamber of Lawyers of the Russian Federation organized an open presentation – discussion, dedicated to publishing a new issue of “Russian Competition Law and Economics” electronic research-to-practice magazine of the Federal Antimonopoly Service. Creating a new format for elaborating on and discussing the key themes in competition law in Russia is a first particular step towards implementing the Agreement on Cooperation between the Federal Antimonopoly Service and Russian Academy of Sciences signed at the end of 2012.

Deputy Heads of FAS, Anatoly Golomolzin and Alexander Kinev; the Head of FAS Anti-Cartel Department, Andrey Tenischev; the Head of FAS Analytical Department, Alexander Sushkevich; Deputy Head of FAS Anti-Cartel Department, Pavel Samolysov; Deputy Head of FAS Legal Department, Sergey Maximov; the Director of the Institute of State and Law, Andrey Lisitsyn-Svetlanov; First Deputy Director of the Institute of State and Law, Nikolai Mikhailov; and representatives of law firms attended the meeting.

The discussion was opened by First Deputy Director of the Institute of State and Law, Nikolai Mikhailov, and Deputy Head of FAS, Anatoly Golomolzin, who emphasized the importance of establishing a new platform to discuss the most pressing issues of developing and applying Russian competition law with involvement of the leading practitioners and theoreticians: lawyers, economists and regulators.

The Head of FAS Analytical Department, the editor-in-chief of the “Russian Competition Law and Economics” journal, Alexander Sushkevich, pointed out a lack of attention from theoreticians to the problems, until recently facing practitioners in antimonopoly enforcement.

“Establishing long-term judicial practice without an impact of academic community is impossible. Cooperation between the antimonopoly bodies with the Russian Academy of Sciences will close the gap. Publishing the “Russian Competition Law and Economics” research-to-practice journal is a prospective form of such cooperation. We will be happy to not only cooperate with the authors representing academic research, but we also hope for involvement of researchers in the work of our editorial board and in preparing specialized issues that focus on the most pressing questions of the theory and practice of antimonopoly regulation”, commented the Head of FAS Analytical Department, Alexander Sushkevich.

Deputy Head of FAS Legal Department, Sergey Maximov, turned attention to the practicality of an in-depth discussion of the key theme of the antimonopoly law: the problems of transforming the industry in competition law by developing a system of pro-competitive standards, increasing the number of preventative provisions and gradually decreasing the number of prohibitive and restrictive antimonopoly norms.

The Head of Moscow Regional OFAS, Igor Bashlakov-Nikolaev, talked about improving the system of measures against violations of the antimonopoly law at tenders. He gave statistical data on violating Article 18.1 in the Moscow region, and also described the trend towards decreasing the number of initiated cases.

Deputy Head of FAS Alexander Kinyov formulated a thesis on the expediency of assigning the powers to the antimonopoly body on operational-investigative activities for the purposes of efficiently obtaining and documenting information about cartel agreements.

“Intensive cooperation with the law enforcement bodies is one of the important areas of FAS work”, emphasized Deputy Head of FAS Alexander Kinev.

Anna Kotova-Smolenskaya, a postdoctoral student at the Institute of State and Law, discussed the proposed changes to the Law “On Protection of Competition” in the part of removing the existing restrictions for applying the antimonopoly law to the results of intellectual activity. She highlighted the findings of a survey of foreign practice on applying the antimonopoly law to intellectual rights, particularly, approaches devised by the Courts and regulators in the USA and the European Union.

Wrapping up the discussion, Andrey Lisitsyn-Svetlanov read out an address of the Chairman of the State Duma Committee on constitutional legislation and state-building Vladimir Pligin, which emphasized the importance of cooperation between academic research and law enforcement practice for drafting and implementing a balanced and efficient antimonopoly policy, usefulness of continuing the dialogue.

At the same time Andrey Lisitsyn-Svetlanov drew attention to the prospects of market regulation by encouraging rather than prohibitive norms of competition law.