Antitrust regulation in Russia. Edition of 2011

III Annual Conference “Antitrust regulation in Russia” was held on October 27 with the support of “Vedomosti” newspaper. The Non-Commercial Partnership “Assistance to the Development of Competition” was the General Partner of the event, and the Law Firm "YUST" – one of the sponsors.

During the Conference, the participants discussed the main events of the year 2011 and their influence on antitrust regulation, the third antitrust package drawn up by the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) of Russia and approved by the State Duma of Russia in the first reading, as well as modern methods and practice of state anti-cartel measures.

One of the most intense thematic sessions “Analysis of court practice” was moderated by Advocate Arthur Rokhlin, Partner at the Firm. He said in his opening speech that the present-day court disputes basically amounted to the issues of construction of Articles 10 and 11 of the Competition Protection Law (on dominating position and agreed actions of economic subjects). Moreover, the disputes, the resolution of which requires application of sectoral legislation, also contribute to the situation. This permits to discover and actually eliminate additional contradictions.

Arthur Rokhlin noted: “As a rule, court disputes relate not only to the application of material law, in particular – the issues of qualification of the economic subjects’ actions, but also to the procedural aspects of bringing them to responsibility”.

During the session, the participants of the Conference learned the position of the FAS of Russia, of the Supreme Court of Arbitration of Russia and of the legal community concerning:

• The approaches to qualification of the transactions aimed at limiting the competition;
• Tendencies of construction of the provisions of dominating market position of an economic subject and of the possibilities to define the territorial and commodity limits of the market;
• Methods of proving of the agreed actions of the economic subjects on the market;
• Limits of the judge’s discretion, when considering complaints against resolutions of antitrust authorities of bringing to administrative responsibility;
• Possibility to consider private law claims as a step towards “provocative court proceedings”.