Federal Antimonopoly Service prepared amendments to the Competition Law

Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) brought up the amendments to the Competition Law for discussion of the expert community. The cases specified in the article 14 of the current law are particularized in the proposed bill. It will help in future to shorten the time and to simplify the proof of antitrust infringement. Today the contradictions of the law interpretation lead to ambiguous judicial practice.

In fact, the article 14 of the current law was written over by the drafters. The following examples are given as a case of unethical competition: discredit of another economic entity, misinformation of consumers, inaccurate comparison, using of the results of intellectual property, using of business reputation of another entrepreneur and others. Herewith Yana Sklyarova, the head of department for protection against unfair competition, laid emphasis on the fact that the new version of the law would be maximally close to the corresponding statutory acts of the European countries.

Several articles of the new bill partly coincide with the advertising legislation and intellectual property legislation. This may lead to temptation on the part of the judicial authorities to apply softer article to the lawbreaker at considering cases. In order to avoid situations of this kind, the new bill expects the amending to Administrative Offences Code, which eliminates the responsibility of the infringers.

On the whole, the bill has generated the approval of the experts, except for the articles related to the using of the intellectual property. Thus, many manufacturers disagree with the introduction of “prior use” notion. In other words, it means that those who started producing the item earlier become the owners of the trademark. Ivan Bliznets, the chairman of Intellectual Property Committee of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation, showed solidarity concerning this question. He explained that the Civil Code of the Russian Federation doesn’t contain such a notion and this legislative instrument is of the higher level.

Before coming into force, the bill will be marked up considering all the notes.