Russia: On November 18, the Russian Union of Brewers held a meeting to discuss the issue of practical application of the provisions of Law on Amendment to Art. 16 of the Federal Law on Advertising (Beer Advertising Restrictions). Representatives of brewery companies, advertising community, RF President Administration expert board and the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service partook in the meeting.

The representatives of the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service summed up the first results of the law enabling practice and noted the high degree of civility and loyalty of the brewery industry in relation to the beer advertising restrictions, especially as compared to other participants of the consumer market. The major part of claims against the brewers was initiated by the territorial FAMS agencies on-site, though not all of them were accepted by the Federal Service. The FAMS forwarded its conclusion on the brewers’ compliance with the provisions of the law to the RF State Duma. Besides, the positive impact of the Union was recognized on the development of the fruitful dialogue between the trade community and the federal state power agencies in the sphere of the branch advertising regulation.

Besides, the participants of the meeting discussed the issue of applying item 1.1 of Art. 16 of the Federal Law that comes in force on January 1, 2005.

The basic issue is the prohibition to use the images of animals and people in beer advertisements. According to the FAMS conclusion, this provision will not be not applied to the labels containing the registered trademarks of the company. Generally, in the opinion of the meeting participants, the application of this provision should be further clarified. The Union suggested forming a Work Team comprising the representatives of the leading brewery companies to jointly develop the FAMS recommendations. In a week the Work team will submit its recommendations concerning the application of the law and will forward them to the territorial agencies of the anti-monopoly service.

In addition, in order to improve the legal regulation of advertising issues, the Union suggested forming a Committee for ethical issues and beer advertising law observance. The Committee regulations and work principles will be developed by the Work Team. It is planned that brewery companies will submit its beer advertising projects for the consideration of the Committee in order to establish the correlation with the legal restrictions already on the preliminary stages. Source: The press-service of the Union of Russian Brewers

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