The Russian Federal Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS) could become less proactive in curbing cartels, collusions and companies with large market shares, Kommersant daily and The Bell suggest after studying the bill on competition and intellectual property that has been reviewed by the FAS.

The weakening of the FAS and anti-monopoly regulation would be detrimental to Russia's investment climate. Notably, this is the first bill reviewed by the watchdog after the resignation of the long-time FAS head Igor Artemyev earlier this year.

As followed by bne IntelliNews, Artemyev headed the FAS for 16 years. A member of the federal committee of the liberal Yabloko Party, he was the only opposition politician in a position of high office. 

"I want the anti-monopoly service to be a truly European body in terms of its contents and style," he told bne IntelliNews back in 2007.

Under Artemyev the FAS has launched three major reforms of regulation of vertically integrated oil companies in 2007-2012, has abolished inter-regional roaming charges for mobile operators, and has activated anti-trust regulation in the digital and the IT fields.

But in a worrying first signal, with Artemyev removed, FAS virtually "capitulated" on reviewing the bill, lobbying group Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) told Kommersant.

The law on competition and intellectual property concerns mostly the services in the IT industry, most notably large conglomerates of fintech and digital services forming around Sberbank state-controlled bank and such internet majors as Yandex and Mail.ru.

Previous drafts of FAS suggested defining specific services, such as ordering taxis or booking hotels, and estimating the degree of monopolistic position of each provider. In the latest bill the focus on relations with end-consumers have been removed. 

The legal analysts surveyed by Kommersant believe that this latest draft makes it virtually impossible to impose anti-monopoly regulation on large digital platforms.

Other initiatives previously promoted by Artemyev that could possibly be rolled back include controlling the investment programmes of large state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and monopolies, linking tariff indexation to specific investment projects.

FAS also previously suggested major transportation reforms, such as extracting gas transportation infrastructure out of the natural gas major Gazprom, tighter control over ports, and privatisation of the Federal Cargo Company controlled by the Russian Railways.