‘An Examination of Russia’s Anti Bid Rigging Policy’

Natalya Mosunova, a PhD Researcher at CCP and the UEA Law School, is at the Competition Law and Economics European Network (CLEEN) Workshop which, this year, is hosted by the Tilburg Law and Economics Center (TILEC). Natalya is presenting her most recent paper entitled ‘An Examination of Russia’s Anti Bid Rigging Policy‘. An abstract for the paper can be found below.

Abstract

The research focuses on the ineffectiveness of cartel criminalisation in Russia, in relation to bid-rigging, investigating whether or not the causes are specific to Russia. The peculiarity of the case lays in the fact that criminalisation is a rather widespread and well-functioning mechanism in Russia. Criminal responsibility for anticompetitive conduct was adopted into Russian criminal legislation in 1997; however, criminalisation is an often overlooked instrument.

For the purpose of the research, the specific characteristics of collusive tendering have been defined. The paper investigates the role of criminal sanctions, among other types of enforcement actions, for this category of antitrust violation. Officials from the Russian Federal Competition Commission and from one of its regional offices were interviewed in order to understand the reasons of malfunctioning of criminal responsibility in bid rigging. The findings from interviews are supplemented by study of relevant cases and demonstrate that the lack of adjustment of legislation to needs of competition law, mismatch of anti bid rigging policy with social expectations and, mainly, resistance of the system of public authorities to eliminate the effect of cartel criminalisation. The paper’s findings help to assess the enforcement of existing law and the reforms.

 

CCP Seminar: Two Surprises in Railways Restructuring

The CCP is delighted to welcome Russell Pittman (Antitrust Division, US Department of Justice) to the Centre this week. He will be revealing ‘Two Surprises in Railways Restructuring’ which is based on findings from 2 of his recent articles.  The seminar is to take place on Friday 17th May in Room 0.1 of the Thomas Paine Study Centre. An abstract for Russell’s seminar can be found below.

Abstract

Policy analysts and scholars have devoted a great deal of attention in recent years to the roles of the old “natural monopoly” sectors in the economy.  As a result, both privatization and restructuring have been widely implemented, often with the goal of substituting competition for regulation where feasible – for example, in electricity generation, mobile telephony, and above-track railway operations.  This presentation reviews the main questions in these debates and then focuses on the railways sector, where very different reform strategies have been used on the two sides of the Atlantic, and where debates continue especially as one moves further east, with South Korea and Russia two prime examples.  These two countries exhibit two “surprises” for long-term participants in the debate:  1) Perhaps it is possible to create above-track competition in passenger operations, and 2) Perhaps there is an alternative locus for “vertical separation” besides that between trains and tracks.

Further reading:

Russell Pittman, ‘The freight railways of the former Soviet Union, twenty years on: Reforms lose steam’ (2013) 6 Research in Transportation Business & Management 99-115; available via SciVerse ScienceDirect.

Russell Pittman and Sunghee Choi, ‘The Economics of Railways Restructuring in South Korea’ (2013); Working Paper available via SSRN.