On 5th December 2010, the international community for the first time celebrated the Global Competition Day. This day in 1980 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the United Nations Set on competition policy to establish the global framework for regulating violations of competition. Recently, at the 6th UN Conference marking the anniversary of adopting the UN Set, the International Network of Civil Society on Competition (INCSOC) proposed to observe this day for the first time in 2010.
Supporting this initiative at the national level will help establish the Global Competition Day internationally under the auspices of the United Nations. FAS Russia gladly responded to the initiative in order to increase public awareness on the issues of competition policy and enforcement.
This year the Global Competition Day focused on “air cargo cartels”, which many industrially developed countries have recently penalized by imposing multi-billion fines upon the main global air cargo carriers. Unfortunately developing countries have not initiated any single case (except the South African Republic) against the cartel members, although businesses and ordinary consumers in developing countries have incurred considerable damages from the cartel’s operations.
Specially to mark the Global Competition Day, Pradeep Mehta, the INCSOC Chairman and the Secretary General of CUTS International, a non-government organization which actively interacts with the world competition community, wrote an article about the global air cargo cartel.
In its turn, FAS Russia finds it necessary to inform the public about the situation with developing competition in air transportation markets for domestic Russian routes as well as the findings of the analysis of the market for air transportation between the CIS member-states, completed within the framework of the Interstate Council for the Antimonopoly Policy (ICAP).
ICAP has drafted proposals for developing competition on the market in question, which are approved by the Heads of Government of the CIS and currently are being implemented.