| The head of the FAS wants to soften the Criminal Code The head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service, Igor Artemyev, demonstrates an integrated approach in the fight for fair competition in markets and for adequate punishment of violators of antimonopoly legislation. Under his leadership, a new law “On the Protection of Competition” was developed and approved by the State Duma last summer in the first reading, and amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses are being prepared. Yesterday, while in St. Petersburg, Mr. Artemyev proposed amending the Criminal Code, or rather Article 178, which provides for punishment for “preventing, restricting or eliminating competition.”
It is proposed to carry out the correction of the Criminal Code in a non-standard manner. Instead of asking for tougher punishment, which representatives of law enforcement agencies periodically do in relation to a number of other articles of the Criminal Code, the head of the FAS demands the opposite. Mr. Artemyev is not satisfied with the maximum sentence established by the article; he wants to reduce it many times (it is noteworthy that the draft of the new law “On Protection of Competition”, on the contrary, envisages increased punishment: fines will increase to 2% of the turnover of the violating company for abuse dominant position in the market, up to 4% - for cartel agreement).
“Currently, Article 178 of the Criminal Code provides for a terrible punishment for violating antimonopoly legislation - imprisonment for up to seven years, but in reality this article is simply not applied. We consider it possible to make the punishment in the form of imprisonment for a term of one to six months. This will be much more effective,” Interfax quotes Mr. Artemyev. According to him, the corresponding amendments are expected to be submitted to the State Duma for consideration in the middle of next year.
It would not be superfluous to note that a seven-year punishment is provided only for the most serious acts of “preventing, restricting or eliminating competition.” That is, for those that were committed “with the use of violence or with the threat of its use, as well as with the destruction or damage of someone else’s property or with the threat of its destruction or damage, in the absence of signs of extortion, or by an organized group.” Moreover, the article also implies a large fine - up to one million rubles.
“To say that the article does not work because of the long sentences is evil,” Petr Dostovalov, a partner at the Moscow bar association FBK-law, told Vremya Novostey. “It doesn’t work because it’s poorly formulated, and also because it’s difficult to prove the existence of elements or events of a crime in this area.” Nikolay Zhdanov, senior lawyer at Pepelyaev, Goltsblat and Partners, shares a similar opinion. “The given justification for reducing the deadlines is not an argument,” he is sure.
In the opinion of Pyotr Dostovalov, what is much more important is not the severity of the punishment (although, according to him, he always welcomes the reduction of sentences), but its inevitability. “The term itself is not very scary when it comes to crimes in economic activity and huge sums are at stake, and punishment can be avoided,” says Mr. Dostovalov.
Meanwhile, amendments to Article 178 of the Criminal Code that minimize punishment seem to Igor Artemyev to be an insufficient measure. He also wants to punish civil servants for violating antitrust laws with a ban on professional activities for three years, as well as introduce penalties for providing government assistance to private companies. “The ban on professional activity is found in quite a large number of articles of the Criminal Code. The measure is good, correct, it is necessary to clean out the bureaucracy, including through criminal prosecution,” says Mr. Dostovalov.
As for Mr. Artemyev’s last proposal, in the opinion of lawyers, it is too vague. “To ban indiscriminately is wrong. There must be transparent mechanisms for helping private companies,” says Petr Dostovalov. One of the mechanisms has long been heard. The investment fund created since 2006 within the federal budget is intended specifically to support large projects of private companies. Mikhail VOROBYEV |
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