Created in November 2017 during the BRICS meeting, held within the BRICS Competition Conference (Brasilia, Brazil) in accordance with the Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation in the field of competition law and policy of the BRICS countries.

Main objectives:

• promoting the formation of a competitive environment in digital markets and in markets exposed to the spread of information technology in the BRICS countries;
• exchange of experience on the improvement of antimonopoly legislation in order to adapt it to the realities of the digital economy;
• conducting joint research and investigations of violations of antimonopoly legislation of a cross-border nature;
• development of new mechanisms to combat anticompetitive practices, adapted for digital reality;
• fighting new type of cartels (concluded without the presence of people, when there is no fact of the existence of an anticompetitive agreement): consideration, discussion of cases;
• developing a consistent approach to the consideration of economic concentration deals in the digital age.

Priority issues for study:

• questions of the digital market definition methodology / market analysis;
• issues related to the detection and suppression of violations of antimonopoly legislation in digital markets;
• issues of determining the nature of algorithms and their influence in organizing an anticompetitive agreement;
• issues of competition in the implementation of public procurement in electronic format;
• issues related to the consideration of transactions of economic concentration in the digital age, in particular mergers of companies with enormous technological and innovative potential;
• issues related to improving the technological potential of competition authorities.

Action Plan:

Within the Working Group for the Research of Competition Issues in the Digital Markets issued in 2019 a joint report of the BRICS Competition Authorities aimed at studying the acute competition issues related to the spread of digital realities.

The meetings of the Working Group are held regularly once or twice a year. Regular contacts are also held in the format of calls, videoconferences, webinars, consultations, meetings.