Development of the BRICS Antimonopoly Centre Discussed at a Meeting of Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service and China’s State Administration for Market Regulation
The project was named the most important joint initiative for bilateral cooperation in antitrust regulation
On 20 March 2019, an official meeting was held in Beijing (China) between Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service delegation and the Deputy Minister of China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), Ms. Gan Lin. On the Chinese side, the Deputy Minister was joined by the Director General of the Antimonopoly Bureau of the SAMR and his deputies.
Director of the BRICS Antimonopoly Centre Alexey Ivanov took part in the event. He spoke about the key objectives of the Centre and about the cooperation between academia of the BRICS countries: “We have established close partner links with BRICS scholars and are jointly discussing potential new approaches to antimonopoly regulation of the digital economy.”
As part of its research activities, the BRICS Centre analyses global problems, drawing on the experience of different countries and taking into account their specific traits and needs. “On 17-18 April, a round table will be held in Beijing, where the Universities of Shanghai and Beijing will participate and the questions stated in the report will be discussed in the context of the specifics of Chinese markets. We will implement outcomes of this discussion in a report that will be presented at the September conference in Moscow. In the end of February, a similar discussion involving academia and business in India took place in Delhi. Towards the summer, there will be a discussion in Brazil.”
Andrei Tsyganov, deputy head of the FAS, expressed the hope that China’s antimonopoly authority will actively share its experience in antitrust law enforcement, in areas such as anti-competitive agreements and unfair practices investigations, market analysis, coordination of economic concentration transactions, and monopoly control.
Alexey Ivanov emphasised that the work carried out by the BRICS Centre has scientific and applied significance not only for the BRICS countries, but also for the whole world: “It is significant that scholars with an international reputation have joined our activities. For example, Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winner in Economics, agreed to chair the Centre’s International Expert Council; Eleonora Fox, a professor at New York University, will be his co-chair. Janis Lianos, a professor at the University College London, is the co-director of the Centre.”
During the discussion, the BRICS Antimonopoly Centre was named one of the most important joint initiatives. Its creation logically followed from the cooperation established during Russia’s chairmanship in BRICS. A working group on antitrust regulation in agriculture was set up in 2015. The outcome of its activities was presented in 2018 at the summit in Brazil and was taken into account by regulators in the development of new antitrust rules.