Currently, in order to improve antitrust regulation and develop competition, amendments to the draft federal law No. 19585-6 “On Amendments to the Law “On Protection of Competition” are being developed.

It is proposed to supplement Article 3 of the Law “On the Protection of Competition” with Part 3, thereby expanding the scope of the provisions of the said law to relations related to the circulation of goods using exclusive rights to the results of intellectual activity, if agreements (actions) related to the use of exclusive rights are aimed at preventing, restricting or eliminating competition in the circulation of the relevant goods.

In this regard, it is proposed to exclude Part 4 of Article 10 and Part 9 of Article 11 of the Law on the Protection of Competition.

It is proposed to exclude from the concept of a "vertical" agreement the provisions that an agency agreement is not a "vertical" agreement (clause 19, Article 4). For the purposes of applying the law on the protection of competition, an agency agreement must be assessed based on the actual rights and obligations of the parties established by such an agreement, which allow it to be considered an agency agreement.

Due to the fact that non-governmental funds are not, in accordance with the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, business companies, partnerships, the characteristics under which persons form a group of persons are specified (clauses 2 and 4 of Article 9).

In order to prevent the creation of discriminatory conditions by an economic entity occupying a dominant position and to increase the transparency of activities, it is proposed to amend Article 10 of the Law on the Protection of Competition, according to which the Government of the Russian Federation, upon the submission of the federal antimonopoly authority, has the right to establish rules for non-discriminatory access containing the provisions provided for in Part 3 of this Article to goods produced and (or) sold by an economic entity occupying a dominant position and not being a subject of a natural monopoly (Part 31 of Article 10).

The FAS Russia is also granted the authority to issue orders to the specified entities to approve and publish rules of trade practice (Part 4 of Article 10).

The list of characteristics of cartels that are prohibited by antitrust legislation is expanded, and the ban is extended to agreements to increase, decrease or maintain prices in trades between economic entities that are part of a group of persons (Article 11).

It is proposed to establish a ban on acts, actions (inactions) and agreements of state authorities and local governments that restrict competition, which may lead to the prevention, restriction, elimination of competition by violating the procedure for pricing and tariff formation established by regulatory legal acts, with the exception of cases stipulated by the legislation of the Russian Federation on state defense procurement (Articles 15 and 16).

The list of prohibited actions during tenders is supplemented by a ban on agreements between tender organizers and (or) customers with participants in such tenders, if such agreements are intended or lead or may lead to restriction of competition and (or) creation of preferential conditions for any participants, unless otherwise provided by the legislation of the Russian Federation (Article 17).

It is proposed to supplement Article 18 of the Law on the Protection of Competition with Part 21, establishing that when conducting an open competition or open auction in accordance with the requirements of this article, the executive authority of the Russian Federation, a constituent entity of the Federation, a local government, or a state extra-budgetary fund has the right to establish a requirement for the presence of a certain rating from Russian or international rating agencies only in the event of a financial institution’s failure to meet the required level of financial stability and solvency.

A new version of Chapter 5 of the Law on the Protection of Competition is proposed, excluding the permitting procedure for the implementation of antimonopoly control over the provision of state and municipal preferences, clarifying the procedure for their provision. It is also proposed to establish administrative liability for failure to submit notifications to the antimonopoly authority on the provision of preferences.

It is proposed to supplement the law on the protection of competition with a new Chapter 51, which provides for antimonopoly requirements for the creation of state and municipal unitary enterprises and state participation in the authorized capital of business entities.

Chapter 51 proposes to establish a ban on the creation of state and municipal unitary enterprises, business entities, more than 50% of whose shares (interests) belong to the state, without prior approval from the antimonopoly authority, to determine the procedure for obtaining such prior consent, the procedure for making a decision on these petitions, as well as the possibility of issuing an order by the antimonopoly authority when exercising control over such enterprises and business entities. Part 1 of Article 214 of the proposed chapter provides that the creation of such enterprises in violation of the established procedure entails liability in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation. Failure to comply with the order of the antimonopoly authority, Part 2 of Article 214, will entail administrative liability provided for in Article 19.5 of the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offenses (CAO RF).

In order to optimize the activities of the antimonopoly service, it is proposed to create a presidium in the federal antimonopoly authority (Article 23), assigning to it the authority to provide clarifications on issues of practical application of specialized legislation and review decisions of territorial antimonopoly authorities if they violate uniformity in the interpretation and application of antimonopoly legislation or violate the rights and legitimate interests of an indefinite number of persons or other public interests.

In order to reduce the administrative burden on economic entities, it is proposed to supplement the law on the protection of competition with a new article 231, establishing a limited period for economic entities to be included in the register of economic entities that have a market share of more than 35% of a certain product or occupy a dominant position in the market of a certain product, if other federal laws for the purposes of their application establish cases for recognizing the dominant position of economic entities in relation to such a market (5 years), as well as the obligation of economic entities to submit information on the main indicators of economic activity to the antimonopoly authority 6 months before the end of the period of inclusion in the register.

It is proposed to expand the circle of persons to whom warnings about the inadmissibility of violating antimonopoly legislation (Article 257) may be sent, including officials of federal executive bodies, state authorities of constituent entities of the Federation, local government bodies, organizations involved in the provision of state and municipal services, state extra-budgetary funds and the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.

Regulators: Amendments in the name of competition