Russia Amends Unfair Competition Law

The amendments to the Law on Protection of Competition were adopted in Russia on October 5, 2015 and will enter into force on January 5, 2016.

The most important change concerns Chapter 2 called “Unfair Competition”, which now includes eight articles (14.1–14.8) instead of one, as various forms of unfair competition are defined in more detail.

The new version of the law prohibits:

• Dissemination of false, inaccurate or misleading information that may cause damage to an economic entity or its business reputation (Art. 14.1);
• Misleading others as to the price, quality, quantity, place of production or other characteristics of the goods (Art. 14.2);
• Incorrect comparison of business entities or their goods, including the use of terms such as “the best”, “first”, “number one”, “only”, “exclusive”, “just”, without indicating characteristics or parameters of comparison that can be verified in practice (Art. 14.3);
• Registration of IP rights in bad faith (Art. 14.4);
• Commercialization of goods with illegally used IP rights (Art. 14.5);
• Committing or omitting acts that can lead to confusion with regards to competing business entities or goods, including the illegal use of trademarks, service marks, company names, trade names, appellations of origin, or trade dress infringement (colors, packaging, design of retail space, corporate style, shop windows) (Art. 14.6);
• Illegal disclosure of information (Art. 14.7);
• Other forms of unfair competition (Art. 14.8).

By: Tatyana Kulikova

For more information, please contact Tatyana Kulikova at our Russia office.