"We operate in a democratic way, so we're giving these companies advance notice that we can start proceedings against them," said Natalya Fonaryova, deputy head of the Antitrust Committee.
The committee has sent letters to the 15 companies this week, warning them that their advertising violates the decree, which prohibits companies from advertising future returns.
The companies include MMM and other reputed pyramid schemes like Tele-market and Germes, as well as a number of trust and investment companies that have advertised returns of 1,000 percent and even more on deposits.
"All these pyramids are built on advertising," Fonaryova said. "If they are allowed to advertise, you see what happens -- it's a shell game on a massive scale."
The mechanism for revoking the licenses will begin working in a matter of days, after the rules governing the procedure are published in the government press.
Under the procedure, a new commission has been formed, headed by Fonaryova, that will effectively have the power to close down companies whose advertising campaigns run counter to the decree.
Fonaryova said the commission, made up of Antitrust Committee staffers as well as law and advertising experts, will first officially demand that companies in violation change their ads.
If the changes are not made during a short term set by the commission for every individual case, the commission will order the government body that licensed the company to revoke the license.
"The licenses will be revoked within days of the official warning," Fonaryova said. "One has to consider the social impact of advertising. Where will we lead people if we allow companies to advertise freeloading and idolize prosperous idlers?"
Some of the companies warned by the Antitrust Committee seemed to be moving to comply with the decree Wednesday.
One of the companies, Art-Finance, which previously promised returns of 1,000 percent annually on deposits, ran an ad in the daily Moskovsky Komsomolets on Wednesday merely promising clients "extremely profitable terms."
Denis Sadovsky, advertising director for Germes, said his company only ran ads that described previous returns on investments. He said dividends on Germes shares reached 1,000 percent in 1993.
Sadovsky also said that television commercials promising every holder of 500 Germes shares an apartment within five years have been stopped by the company.
But Vera Averina, advertising manager for Tekhinvest M, an investment company that has boasted rates of 1,000 percent a year under a cumulative interest arrangement, said she saw no reason for her firm to change its ads.
"It doesn't make any difference whether we write that we paid out 500 percent in the first half of the year or that we pay 1,000 percent a year," she said. "This is not a promise, this is reality. I don't see why we should be accused of building castles in the air."
But Fonaryova from the Antitrust Committee defended the restriction on companies advertising projected profits.
"How can they guarantee a fixed return if they don't know how the market is going to change in the future?" she said.
Averina said Tekhinvest M would alter its ads if ordered to do so by the authorities, but said that such an order would be unfair.
"Advertising is supposed to portray a company in the best possible light," she argued. "If some companies use advertising to build pyramid schemes, why do we have to spoil our ads because of others who work dishonestly?"Averina, however, declined to say how Tekhinvest M invested its clients' money to make the huge returns possible.
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