The issue of antitrust “immunities” in the field of intellectual property (IP) took center stage at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF 2026). The debate unfolded during the session “Antimonopoly Regulation and Intellectual Property: Rethinking Approaches in the Digital Age,” featuring remarks by Alexey Ivanov, Director of the BRICS Competition Law and Policy Centre.
Russian law currently provides antitrust immunities that exempt activities involving exclusive intellectual property rights from antitrust scrutiny, even when such activities restrict competition. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) argues that these provisions create opportunities for abuse and has drafted legislation aimed at limiting their scope. The initiative has sparked broad discussion among business leaders and legal experts, a debate that continued at SPIEF.
Intellectual property serves as a driver of innovation and protects the interests of rights holders, but exclusive rights can also become a tool for restricting competition and monopolizing markets, said session moderator Andrey Sharonov, Chief Executive Officer, National ESG-Alliance. According to Sharonov, the task of competition authorities in any country is to strike a reasonable balance.
“In the platform economy, rights holders acquire enormous opportunities and power and often operate according to the principle that ‘the winner takes all.’ This only increases the importance of antitrust regulation.”
In the photo: Maxim Shaskolskiy © Roscongress
The existence of exclusive rights should not exempt rights holders from complying with the principles of fair competition, said Maxim Shaskolskiy, Head, Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) of Russia. According to him, regulatory practice in digital markets, as well as rulings by Russia’s Constitutional Court and Supreme Court, demonstrate that IP protection and antitrust enforcement are not contradictory objectives. At the same time, antitrust immunities create an imbalance: rights holders can rely on competition law mechanisms to protect their interests, while scrutiny of their own conduct is often limited by those same immunities.
“Long-term economic sustainability and development are ensured not by immunities, but by a balance between investment protection, technological advancement, and the preservation of a competitive environment,”
Shaskolskiy said.
Alexey Ivanov noted that the debate over antitrust immunities in intellectual property has been ongoing in Russia for more than a decade. He argued that these provisions, like the ban on parallel imports, were introduced during Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization and were largely the result of external pressure. In his view, they primarily served the interests of major international rights holders, while the main costs and restrictions fell on Russian small businesses.
According to Ivanov, Russia’s approach differs significantly from international practice. Advanced economies with high levels of innovation do not provide such broad exemptions from antitrust enforcement for rights holders. Similar privileges, he said, do not exist in the European Union, China, Saudi Arabia, or other BRICS countries. As a result, eliminating these immunities would not amount to expanding antitrust regulation but rather restoring generally accepted principles of competition policy.
In the photo: Alexey Ivanov © Roscongress
Ivanov recalled that in 2013, the Higher School of Economics, together with the Skolkovo Foundation and researchers from University College London and New York University, conducted Russia’s first comprehensive interdisciplinary study on the impact of intellectual property institutions on social development and innovation. The study was titled “Intellectual Property and Social Development: Time for Pragmatism.”
“At that time, we concluded that the intellectual property regime needed to be reconsidered in the interests of the Russian economy and consumers. One of the issues examined in depth was parallel import regulation. Remarkably, the report’s main conclusions remain highly relevant today.”
Ivanov also stressed that Russia’s Constitution explicitly prohibits monopolization, while it does not guarantee companies a right to collect economic rents. In his view, the term “privileges” is more accurate than “immunities” in the context of intellectual property, as certain companies receive exemptions from competition rules that apply to all other market participants.
“Not only does a company enjoy patent protection for a specified term or an exclusive right to use the results of intellectual activity, it is also granted an additional monetization tool that can be used to monopolize markets, exploit consumers, enter into anticompetitive agreements, and abuse rights. Article 10 of the Law on Protection of Competition prohibits abuse of a dominant position. Yet a significant portion of markets connected with intellectual property has effectively been excluded from the scope of this provision.”
In conclusion, Ivanov emphasized that international legal frameworks do not provide antitrust privileges for rights holders. On the contrary, Article 40 of the TRIPS Agreement expressly permits the use of competition law to address anticompetitive practices involving intellectual property rights.
In the photo: Fahad bin Ibrahim Alshathri © Roscongress
Fahad bin Ibrahim Alshathri, Chief Executive Officer, General Authority for Competition (GAC), noted that IP protection plays a particularly important role within the framework of Saudi Vision 2030, where innovation and digital transformation are key pillars of economic development. According to him, concerns arise when IP rights are used to expand market power and unjustifiably restrict competition.
“The authority also examines whether intellectual property rights are being used in a manner that restricts interoperability, limits access to essential technologies, or leverage dominance from one market to other markets.”
In the photo: Aizezi Aili © Roscongress
Aizezi Aili of China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) outlined recent legislative reforms and enforcement guidelines addressing trademarks, patents, and abuses of intellectual property rights. According to Aili, China is strengthening regulation at the intersection of competition law and intellectual property in an effort to maintain a balance between encouraging innovation and protecting competition.
Competition itself is what drives innovation, while granting immunities beyond established rules hinders it, said Maksim Yermalovich, Member of the Board (Minister) for Competition and Antimonopoly Regulation, Eurasian Economic Commission. He noted that Eurasian Economic Union law does not provide immunities related to competition and intellectual property and expressed support for eliminating them in Russia.
“We apply a uniform approach to the protection of intellectual property rights in our agreements. The most important thing is to prevent abuse of those rights. When dominant firms, including Big Tech companies, begin abusing them, antitrust immunities weaken the protection of national markets against such practices.”
In the photo: Tadzio Schilling © Roscongress
Tadzio Schilling, Chief Executive Officer, Association of European Businesses (АЕВ), argued that exclusive rights effectively create a limited monopoly necessary to recoup investments in intellectual property, generate profits, and finance future innovation. He expressed concern over the FAS initiative to restrict antitrust immunities in the IP sphere.
“The abolition of immunities and the limitation of lawful monopoly rights are perceived as a threat to scientific and technological progress and as a deterioration of the investment climate. We support retaining the current wording of Federal Law No. 135-FZ [on the Protrction of Competition]and developing self-regulatory mechanisms, including sector-specific codes and principles, rather than introducing rigid legislative restrictions. This is the consolidated position of the foreign business community.”
Igor Drozdov, Deputy Chairman, VEB.RF, emphasized that intellectual property constitutes a legal rather than a de facto monopoly because it exists by virtue of law. At the same time, he stressed the need to address abuses in either case. He noted that Russian legislation, particularly the Civil Code, already contains mechanisms such as compulsory licensing and exceptions allowing the use of patents and copyrighted works under certain circumstances. In his view, these tools already provide ways to limit monopoly power when necessary.
In the photo: Igor Drozdov © Roscongress
Yury Zubov, Head, Federal Service for Intellectual Property (Rospatent), expressed similar concerns. He argued that careless or poorly considered intervention in a well-functioning IP framework could disrupt the balance between public and private interests, undermine the country’s investment attractiveness, and reduce confidence among domestic innovators and inventors that their rights and creations will be adequately protected.
In the photo: Andrey Bushev © Roscongress
Andrey Bushev, Judge, Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, noted that the Court does not take sides in the debate and instead recognizes that the final decision belongs to the legislature, which must balance the interests of business and competition. He stressed that any “immunities” in this area are not absolute: they may provide temporary advantages that allow rights holders to monetize investments, but they should not be used to the detriment of markets or other stakeholders. Antitrust authorities, he said, must retain the ability to assess their legitimacy on a case-by-case basis.
By the end of the discussion, most participants agreed that abolishing antitrust immunities in the field of intellectual property is a necessary and long-overdue step. Participants noted that the FAS is pursuing this objective gradually and carefully, seeking to preserve a balance between competition, public interests, and the interests of market participants.
The 28th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum takes place on 3–6 June, 2026. This year’s theme is “Pragmatic Dialogue: the Path to a Stable Future“. The agenda includes international cooperation and BRICS development, technological leadership and digital sovereignty, artificial intelligence, financial markets, the creative economy, healthcare, workforce development, and sustainable growth. Saudi Arabia is the forum’s guest country in 2026.
