On6 November 2013 the Association for Resistance to Unfair Competition heldtogether with experts from Arzinger the webinar "It is not aboutcollusion. How Russian retailers managed to explain similarity of theircontracts in court?". The event dealt with claims of the FAS to Russiannational retails. The essence of the claims discussed varies little from theviolations the Ukrainian chains are being charged with now.  

Leadingexperts that defended the clients in Russian courts were invited to speak atthe workshop, namely Aleksey Kostovarov, Associate at the law firm"Liniya Prava", and  Vadim Novikov, senior researcher atthe Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration,task force moderator for competition development at the Russian GovernmentalExpert Centre. Natalia Ivanytska, Co-Head of the Antitrust andCompetition Practice at Arzinger, an expert at the Association for Resistanceto Unfair Competition, moderated the workshop.

Speakerselaborated on the history of the dispute, peculiarities of the caseinvestigation and, naturally, on arguments that allowed them to defend theclients in court.

Thus,in 2011 the FAS of Russia accused house appliances retailers that the non-priceterms in the chains' contracts with suppliers (marketing bonuses, deferredpayments etc.) appeared in their contracts due to the anticompetitivesynchronized behavior with no proof of collusion. These conclusions of the FASwere successfully contested in court.

AlekseyKostovarovspoke about the role of experts-economists in the development of the defensestrategy. He explained his vision of the situation, strategy, approaches andarguments applied that worked in Russia und might work in Ukraine.Nevertheless, he advised to consider differences between Ukrainian and Russianmarkets and in approaches of the antitrust authorities in both countries.Aleksey was convinced that it is important to apply economic analysis andsubstantiation while considering antitrust cases. The economic evaluation maybe of the key importance in court proceedings on such cases. 

VadimNovikovcontinued the workshop and noted that the case with Russian retails was achallenge as it was preceded by a broad public discussion and it had somepolitical background due to the passing of the trade act. Vadim singled outthree main directions to present the arguments before court. In particular, itmeans to explain the essence of the commercial practices, to substantiate thatthese practices do not influence the increase of retail prices and todemonstrate that the version of a "tacit collusion" is not functionalin this situation.