ART DE LEX lawyers took part in the X annual conference on “Antimonopoly regulation in Russia”

On 26 October 2018, leading lawyers from ART DE LEX took part in the key event in the field of antitrust regulation in Russia and the CIS: the X annual conference on “Antitrust regulation in Russia.” The traditional organizers of the event are the newspaper Vedomosti and the Association of Antitrust Experts, with the support of the Federal Antimonopoly Service.

Yaroslav Kulik, a partner and the head of the ART DE LEX Competition Practice, moderated the opening session that reviewed the main events of 2018 and their impact on antitrust regulation. During the lively session with the deputy heads of the FAS of Russia, participants discussed strategic issues in the field of competition development as well as problematic aspects of law enforcement.

The topics included:

• the impact of the Russian presidential decree on the main directions of competition policy and the government roadmap by sectors for the economy in 2018-2020;
• the development of competition in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation;
• an analysis of the landmark decision of the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service on the merger of the global giants Bayer and Monsanto;
• the improvements to the fifth antimonopoly package, primarily its effect on the operation of digital platforms;
• a consideration of law enforcement practices with respect to tariff regulation when there is “an expectation of reform”; and
• the effectiveness of the new defense pricing rules.

Kirill Dozmarov, an attorney-at-law and the head of the ART DE LEX Competition Practice Group, as well as Sergey Puzyrevsky, the deputy head of the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service, moderated the session on tariff regulation. Together with colleagues from law firms and major companies, Sergey Puzyrevsky and Kirill Dozmarov dealt with rather acute issues, including the draft Federal Law “On the fundamentals of the state regulation of prices (tariffs),” tariff unification, the institution of a regular contract, tariff setting, and many other topics.

The final stage of the conference was the business game “Considerations of a private claim for recovery of damages caused by a cartel agreement.” Leading lawyers and experts in the field of antimonopoly regulation clearly demonstrated the possibility of recovering losses in private claims as a result of antimonopoly legislation violations. Dmitry Gavrilenko, a senior associate at ART DE LEX who acted as the coordinator of the illegal collusion, revealed the difficulties in attempting to prove losses as a result of illegal coordination, and he presented a successful line of defense in this type of case.

Based on the results of the game, the conference participants assessed the persuasiveness and validity of the parties’ arguments and decided on the case, within the framework of a business game. The participants of the conference who constituted the jury considered the arguments of the illegal conspiracy’s coordinator to be substantiated and deemed the claim of losses as unsupported.

More information about the results of the conference are available at: https://events.vedomosti.ru/events/anti18#program.