Analytics and brochures

International Assurance Complience Programme

In Russia, the government and sports teams are working to attract more foreign sports fans – as well as private investment. To this end, officials are – among other things – looking at relaxing visa requirements for foreigners visiting for sporting events. “(Russian sports teams) need to be more competitive, not just on the field, but commercially,” said Andrey Tereschenko, a partner at Pepeliaev Group. 

The conclusions of the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia ("FAS of Russia") relating to the Google case, in which the service pointed out the increased barriers for domestic developers seeking to enter the mobile software market, have prompted members of parliament to come forward with an initiative to introduce state regulation of the market of pre-installed applications. However, such an artificial restriction of competition may adversely affect the quality of products and entail an increase in their prices for consumers.

The FAS of Russia has put before the State Duma a much-anticipated draft law on antitrust compliance. The current version of it contains amendments only to Federal Law No. 135-FZ “On the protection of competition” dated 26 July 2006, and the draft itself has the nature of a framework. Once they are finally adopted the new rules will most likely require specification at the level of subordinate legislation adopted by the regulator, for example, in the form of clarifications by the FAS of Russia’s Presidium regarding the criteria used to assess the efficiency of a system for preventing risks.

Letter No. ED-4-13/15696@ “On holding companies’ beneficial ownership of income from sources in the Russian Federation” dated 8 August 2019 was published on the official website of the Russian Federal Tax Service on 13 August 2019. This letter evidences quite a serious change of the Service’s approach to the problem, which for many years has been the subject matter of tax disputes and professional discussions.

Thirteen years ago, simultaneously with Federal Law No. 135-FZ dated 26 July 2006 “On the protection of competition” taking effect, the institution of collective dominance was introduced. It aims to solve issues arising on oligopolistic markets. Today, collective dominance is applied more widely in Russia than in the EU, where it is used for a prospective analysis within assessments of economic concentration transactions. Ironically, in the U.S.A., the homeland of antitrust regulation, there is no such tool at all. An examination of Russian practice casts doubt on the model of how this institution is applied.