Modern antimonopoly policy should promote economic growth and respond to new challenges in a timely manner. At the same time, it is important not to create additional barriers to entrepreneurship. This was discussed at the IX Research and Practice Conference “Antimonopoly Policy: Science, Practice, Education” which opened on November 14 at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE University). The conference was attended by Maxim Shaskolsky, Head of the FAS of Russia, Nikita Anisimov, Rector of the HSE University, representatives of the government, business and expert community.
The moderator of the plenary session, Sergey Puzyrevsky, Stats Secretary – Deputy Head of the FAS Russia, reminded that the national project “Efficient and Competitive Economy” may include a separate project on competition development. He expressed hope that the broad discussion would allow to find new solutions to contemporary problems, including interstate cooperation in antimonopoly policy.
In the photo: Sergey Puzyrevsky © HSE
Nikita Anisimov, Rector of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, emphasized that the antimonopoly track is one of the university's priorities and reminded that the first FAS base chair was established at HSE University. The International BRICS Competition Law and Policy Centre, which was mentioned in the recent declaration of the heads of the BRICS countries and separately by the Russian President at the XVI BRICS summit in Kazan, also operates at HSE, which emphasizes the importance of this track.
In the photo: Nikita Anisimov © HSE
Maxim Shaskolsky, Head of the FAS Russia, thanked Nikita Anisimov and HSE University for their assistance in organizing the conference. Russia trains specialists in antitrust regulation at many universities, many of them have specialized departments, but the first one was established in 2005 at the Higher School of Economics, he reminded. The current time requires systematic legislative regulation in the antimonopoly sphere, its improvement should not lag behind the development of the economy, including digitalization, believes the head of the FAS. Maxim Shaskolsky reminded that the 5th antimonopoly package limited the possibility of cartel formation on platforms. Relying on the new laws, the service identified a number of methods of aggregators, creating unfavorable conditions for sellers, and sent them instructions to eliminate violations, which were fulfilled. Regulatory measures, he believes, are also applicable to social networks and video hosting platforms.
In the photo: Maxim Shaskolsky © HSE
The head of the FAS believes that it is important to exclude antimonopoly immunity for intellectual property in the situation of abuse of the right to software and overpricing.
In his opinion, it is important to have effective control over economic concentration transactions, including intra-group transactions. Right now, the notification procedure for certain transactions precludes the possibility of terminating them because they are already finalized at the time of notification.
“We believe that the abolition of the notification procedure will prevent hidden monopolization,”
Maxim Shaskolsky said.
Control over pricing on socially important markets has become an important element of the service's work. FAS studies prices for food, transportation, medicines and other goods and conducts inspections. Response measures are aimed at stabilizing specific markets.
© HSE
The Head of the FAS noted: international cooperation is an important tool for increasing the efficiency of antimonopoly regulation. The FAS is intensifying cooperation with the antimonopoly services of the BRICS, EAEU and ASEAN countries. Over the past year, Iran, Ethiopia and the UAE have joined the cooperation.
“We are actively suppressing antitrust law violations that have a cross-border nature,”
Maxim Shaskolsky summarized.
Maxim Ermolovich, Minister of Competition and Antimonopoly Regulation of the Eurasian Economic Commission, noted that the Commission is now intensifying cross-border cooperation with national antimonopoly authorities. This will make it possible to delimit national competences and to influence violators as soon as possible. Their work will be coordinated, and if a company is held liable in one of the countries, it will be extended to other states of the community.
However, according to the EAEU representative, there are still gray areas where there is no coordination yet. For example, when changing the criteria for a dominant market position: the Union's documents specify this, but law enforcement shows that the criteria need to be improved.
The most problematic issue now in the economic law of the Union is the lack of opportunity for individuals and officials to appeal against the decisions of the Economic Court of the EAEU. This prevents citizens from exercising their constitutional rights.
The EEC is creating a methodology for the impact of legal regulation on competition in the EAEU countries, so that each country could assess its regulatory system, and legal acts would be examined for compliance with the principles of competition.
In the photo: Andrey Bushev © HSE
Andrey Bushev, Judge of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, noted that the Constitution establishes the principles of activity for all spheres of life. The Constitutional Court expresses positions on the freedom of entrepreneurial activity, the principle of good faith, fairness, etc. According to the speaker, the new stage of institutionalization of competition is connected with the constitutional reform of 2020, when the Basic Law was supplemented with Article 75.1, indicating that participants of economic activity are obliged to take into account the interests of other persons and subjects of the economy.
Recently, the Constitutional Court considered the question whether municipalities are obliged to conduct tenders to fulfill the functions of enterprises with important social powers. The Court ruled that tenders should be held, but taking into account the situation in a particular region and locality: if there is a competitive environment and there are companies or individual entrepreneurs performing certain types of work, tenders are necessary, but if there is no competition, it is pointless to hold tenders.
“There is a competition of legal orders in the fight for investors and for the creation of a competitive environment, and the usual Russian tendency “as if something would not go wrong” should not prevail,”
Andrey Bushev noted.
In the photo: Alexey Ivanov © HSE
Alexey Ivanov, Director of the International BRICS Competition Law and Policy Centre at the HSE University, is confident that the interaction between the academic community and the FAS creates prerequisites for successful work. Competition law is changing in the context of the transition to a multipolar world. Globalization continues to develop, but it is no longer monopolistic. Multipolarity implies demonopolization of global processes. And if competition law used to be rather bureaucratized, now it is returning to the focus of attention of scholars and practitioners. In the last 30 years, the world got globalization based on free trade and protection of intellectual property rights, but the antitrust balance was absent. But today, both country leaders and the expert community are emphasizing the importance of a proper competition regime as a tool for balancing the global economy for the benefit of BRICS and the developing world as a whole.
According to Alexey Ivanov, in antimonopoly activities it is important to understand that price increases for food products are often caused not by the seller's desire to maximize profits, but by the consequences of the global market. For example, a rise in egg prices may be caused by more complicated logistics and a sharp increase in the prices of feed, vaccines and other medicines. It is important to intervene very carefully in complex technological and logistical chains, HSE University's expert believes. It is also necessary to revitalize competition in food value chains. Alexey Ivanov believes that researching markets in general and global value chains is the future of antitrust regulation.
In the photo: Li Fan © HSE
Li Fan, Official of the Department II of Antimonopoly Enforcement, State Administration for market regulation of the People’s Republic of China, noted that in China the regulator's work is based on the opinions of market participants and the public. With their participation, documents have been developed to focus efforts and enhance transparency of law enforcement and enforcement agencies. Special attention is paid to activities related to takeovers. Last year, the agency received about 3,000 applications for concentration of proceedings, 400 cases were accepted into proceedings, each of them was considered for 16.5 days on average.
The agency has also established a mechanism to control the emergence of risks, which helps companies make mergers and acquisitions while complying with the law.
“This includes the digital system, which is the mechanism of our activities,”
said the PRC representative.
© HSE
The plenary session was also attended by Dmitry Makhonin, Governor of Perm Krai, Iskandar Bin Ismail, CEO of Malaysia Competition Commission; Farrukh Karabaev, Deputy Chairman of the Committee for the Development of Competition and Consumer Protection of the Republic of Uzbekistan; Svetlana Avdasheva, Professor, Faculty of Economic Sciences, National Research University Higher School of Economics, and Tadzio Schilling, CEO of the Association of European Businesses.
The second plenary session of the conference, organized jointly with the St. Petersburg International Commodity and Raw Materials Exchange (SPIMEX), was dedicated to the development of exchange trading in commodities and raw materials in Russia and coordination on the creation of the BRICS Commodity and Raw Materials Exchange. The session was attended by SPIMEX President Igor Artemyev, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Financial Market Anatoly Aksakov, Advisor to the Deputy Chairman of the Bank of Russia Larisa Selyutina and other government officials and experts. The conference also included a meeting of the BRICS Working Group on Cartels.
