FAS: digital technologies development is colossal

In the opinion of representatives of the antimonopoly authority, the market of electronic services has a significant impact upon jurisprudence

On 15^th May 2017, the “Corporate Counsel Association” Non-Profit Partnership, the President of which is Alexandra Nesterenko, held a conference in St Petersburg as one of the first satellite events at St Petersburg International Legal Forum.

The event theme was: “Futurology in jurisprudence. How to make Russian legal ideas global”. The Conference participants emphasized that state-of-the-art technological changes have made a significant impact upon the legal profession and the law system in general.

Deputy Head of FAS Andrey Tsyganov pointed out that a detailed discussion of law robotization had started in 2015. “We observe colossal development of digital technologies. They expand the range of legal services, making this market international. In the global world you can get a legal service being in another corner of the planet”, said Andrey Tsyganov.

“One can state that the market of e-technologies has already resulted in automating the work of professional lawyers at least in its routine part”, added Deputy Head of FAS. “In my opinion, this situation improves the work quality since it eliminates the so-called excessive act”.

Discussing the market of law services, Andrey Tsyganov pointed out broad opportunities for obtaining such services remotely, developing the market of electronic legal services and platforms, implementing self-learning systems of big data analysis in the practice of the largest legal firms.

“One should not forget, however, about the need to change regulation of legal profession. Many developed countries understand the importance of this process”, continued Andrey Tsyganov. “First of all, it includes approaches to analyzing mergers and acquisitions of companies operating on the market.  Second, in some countries there are quotas for particular services and restrictions on advertising activity of legal firms, as well as prohibition for non-lawyers to offer legal services. Such regulatory restrictions can have an adverse effect upon the state of competition on the market”.

Deputy Head of FAS Anatoly Golomolzin continued the digital economy theme. He pointed out that it has a significant effect upon competitive environment not only at the national but also at the global scale. “Actions of transnational corporations can affect adjacent markets”, informed Deputy Head of FAS. “In our turn, we apply antimonopoly remedies in case of cartel practices by such corporations”.

He discussed in detail the outcome of the case against “Google” and the progress in the “Microsoft” and “Apple” cases.

“Taking into account all changes in digital economy, Russian antimonopoly authority promptly reacts to such transformations. Currently FAS is drafting proposals to protect and develop competition under the conditions of globalization”, concluded Anatoly Golomolzin.

The discussion participants, including judges of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Yarislavtsev and Gadis Gadzhaev; Vice-President on Corporate and Legal Affairs, “MTS” PJSC, Ruslan Ibragimov; a managing partner of St Petersburg Office of “Dentons”, Viktor Naumov;   a senior lawyer on intellectual property at “ROSNANO”, Vitaly Kalyatin paid special attention to developing the law system under new challenges and technologies. The Conference also considered priority changes in the law in the part of regulating “human-machine” and “machine-machine” relations, efficiently combining regulatory and protective functions of the law.

Summing up the conference results, President of the Corporate Counsel Association, Alexandra Nesterenko emphasized that the future of legal professions is inseparably connected with competition on the market of legal services, across corporate lawyers, in notaryship, etc.

“We have to compete with robots that can perform routine near-legal operations but will never be able to solve ethical issues.  Therefore, with an increased competition between machines and people special regulation is required in view of the regulation subjects and object”, stated Alexandra Nesterenko.