Cooperation with the Federal Antimonopoly Service

On September 27, 2016, within the framework of the ”Competition Week in Russia”, the Memorandum of Understanding in the field of competition policy was signed between the Ministry of Antimonopoly Regulation and Trade of the Republic of Belarus and the Federal Antimonopoly Service (Russian Federation).

In order to develop and strengthen cooperation in the field of competition policy, the antimonopoly authorities reached an agreement on cooperation in the following priority areas:

• combating cartels;
• combating unfair competition and control over advertising;
• ensuring compliance with the ban on abuse of dominant position;
• antimonopoly regulation of the market of medicines;
• antimonopoly regulation of the retail market;
• development of competition in the procurement sphere.
   

The Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Belarus and the Government of the Russian Federation on cooperation in the field of competition protection was signed on February 27, 2019.

The Agreement is the first bilateral Belarusian-Russian international agreement that establishes tools for practical interaction of antimonopoly authorities in law enforcement (for example, in terms of exchanging confidential information, conducting certain procedural actions (requesting documents, interviewing individuals, etc.), coordinating law enforcement activities, etc.).

As a follow-up to this Agreement, on August 22, 2019 MART and FAS Russia signed the Memorandum on the establishment of a Joint Belarusian-Russian Expert Council on the development of competition in socially important markets.

The main tasks of the Expert Council are to promote the development and protection of competition in socially important markets, to evaluate draft documents and information submitted for its consideration, and to cooperate on improving the Antimonopoly legislation of the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation.