Yaroslav Kulik moderated the session titled “Public procurement in Russia: a view of the procurement process and members of the supervisory authority” at the “Antitrust regulation in Russia” conference

On 16 October 2015, the VII annual conference on “Antitrust regulation in Russia,” took place. Its traditional organizers are the Non-commercial partnership “Competition Support Association” and the newspaper Vedomosti, and the conference has the support of FAS Russia.

The participants discussed the following issues: major events of 2015 in the area of antitrust regulation that resulted in a significant impact on competition, regulatory issues for suppliers of food and retail chains, public procurement, major events and vectors about the development of drugs and medical products, competition in the financial markets during the economic crisis, problems of proof in antitrust investigations, and most significant applications of antitrust laws.

At the plenary meeting of the conference, the head of FAS Russia, Igor Artemyev, presented an overview of current antimonopoly policy. In addition to the head of FAS Russia, leading lawyers and economists, specializing in competition law and practice, attended the event.

One of the key sessions of the conference was “Public procurement in Russia: a view of the procurement process and members of the supervisory authority.” Yaroslav Kulik, a partner and head of the antitrust practice at the ART DE LEX law firm and a member of the General Council of the NP “Promoting Competition,” together with the Deputy Head of FAS Russia, Andrei Tsarikovsky, moderated the session.

Andrew Tsarikovsky told the participants about ongoing reforms concerning the regulation of public procurement companies and commented on the proposed amendments to Law 223-FZ.

Yuri Zafesov, the procurement director for Rossetti, and Alexei Ponomarev, the director of monitoring and information systems procurement for Rostelecom, actively participated in the discussion about the amendments to Law 223-FL. Alexey Ponomarev called on FAS, which is tightening procurement rules for state companies, to think about the cost of the new requirements for customers. Yuri Zafesov noted that effect of Law 223-FL is different on various companies, despite the fact that the requirements are general, because they do not take into account any special circumstances. Infrastructure companies, for example, are required to comply with security requirements. According to Yury Zafesov, the share of small and medium-sized businesses in all orders of Rossetti is about 25-30 percent, but the subsidiary of FSK-EES cannot make even the mandatory quota of 18 percent.

Dmitry Andreev, director of the Center of Logistics of Sberbank, proposed the creation of an operational tool for feedback between customers and FAS, which he maintains is absent in the FAS structure, in order to prevent violations of Law 223-FL. He noted that “every complaint and consequently the suspension of procurement costs much money for companies and the state, as a shareholder.”

Tatiana Demidova, the head of controlling, monitoring and placement of state orders of FAS Russia, detailed FAS’s competence to conduct unscheduled inspections for compliance with Law 44-FL. She explained how they differ from audits resulting from complaints and how the participants can use the results of these audits to protect their rights.

The main topic of the session was problems stemming from the lack of uniform enforcement. Vasily Zhukov, the deputy head of the Department of Competition Policy for the City of Moscow, told about disputable situations in the practices of one department. That elicited comments and recommendations from Tatiana Demidova. One of the examples in the discussion was a dispute over the introduction of data in the register of unfair suppliers.

Maria Kobanenko, an adviser of LB Egorov, Puginsky, Afanasiev, and Partners, raised the issue of the application of Article 17 of the Law on Protection of Competition in the consideration of complaints under Article 18.1 of the act. She considered the legal position of the courts, regarding the competency of the antimonopoly body to consider arguments about the violation of antimonopoly requirements for trading under the procedures of Article 18.1, and she spoke about the practice of antitrust authorities when dealing with such situations. She also discussed the issue of the procurement qualification procedure for Law 223-FL. This qualification is important when a customer unjustifiably refuses to sign a contract with the winner.

See the article in Vedomosti about the results of the session.

Keep on top of the activities of the forum in the newspaper Vedomosti, which will publish articles about the key topics of the conference.