Market power, competition, and antitrust regulation in Russia: #15yearschallenge
On 27 June 2019, the “Market power, competition, and antimonopoly regulation in Russia: #15yearschallenge” conference took place in Moscow.
The speakers discussed the development of antitrust regulation, considered such issues as market power, dominance, competition, and public procurement, and touched upon the main problems facing the small, medium, and large businesses. ART DE LEX acted as a partner of the conference.
Dmitry Magonya, an attorney-at-law, the head of International Economic Compliance, and the managing partner of ART DE LEX, moderated the opening session. The speakers considered how the approaches of the Federal Antimonopoly Service changed over the 15 years of its existence. They discussed the impact of the FAS of Russia on competition and antimonopoly regulation, and they identified one of the main problems facing the Russian economy today–its gradual nationalization. Mr. Magonya noted that “nationalization has reached 75 percent in the Russian economy, but its growth has slowed. At the same time, the share of small and medium-sized businesses is decreasing, while the power of monopolies is growing.” The experts also touched upon the problems of international sanctions and their impact on both competition and antimonopoly enforcement in Russia.
Kirill Dozmarov, an attorney-at-law and head of the ART DE LEX Antitrust Practice Group, spoke during a session titled “Market power as an aspect of a dominant position.” Mr. Dozmarov remarked that “it is encouraging to see the evolution of the methods the antimonopoly authorities have at their disposal to analyze the markets and the firms with dominant positions. It is important to note that providing the FAS with the scientific research of independent experts and economists and combining it with the work of the antimonopoly authority has become common practice.” The speakers also touched upon the issues of collective dominance, bilateral monopolies, and structural alternatives to the existing economic analysis of commodity markets.
Anna Bolshakova, an attorney-at-law and head of the ART DE LEX Antimonopoly Practice Group, spoke at the session titled “Public procurement in Russia 2020.” She also acted as a moderator of a roundtable, during which participants discussed the latest trends in proving unfair competition that are based on research.
The conference ended with a Mock Dawn Raid, an interactive game whose moderator was Yaroslav Kulik, an attorney-at-law, partner, and head of the ART DE LEX Antimonopoly Regulation Practice. During a simulated unscheduled field inspection of the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service, which was part of a hypothetical cartel investigation, certain conference participants had to find violations that other participants had committed.
Speakers at the conference included Andrey Tsyganov, the deputy head of the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service, Ivan Timofeev, the program director of the Russian Council on International Affairs, Nellie Galimkhanova, the head of the Industrial Control Department of the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service, and Dmitry Gavrilenko, the head of the Antimonopoly Risk Department at NLMK.