COMPETITION IS ONE OF SPECIAL CONSTITUTIONAL VALUES
Sergey Puzyrevskiy explained how a market can be monopolized and what is not covered by the Law “On Protection of Competition”
On 15 February, Sergey Puzyrevskiy took part in an international interactive Round Table – “Problems of liability enforcement for violating the antimonopoly law: Russian and foreign experience”, where he discussed modern issues of liability for violating the antimonopoly law in Russia.
Deputy Head of FAS pointed out that recently the structure of antimonopoly cases has been changing and its “intellectual” element” has been increasing. Globalization and digitalization of the economy is a driving factor. State-of-the-art technologies are used, for example, to form bid-rigging cartels.
Sergey Puzyrevskiy emphasized that the Law “On Protection of Competition” contains immunities for actions and agreements on use of exclusive rights for objects of intellectual property1, as a result of which “large foreign right-holders gain unreasonable advantages to the detriment of competition development on the markets”.
“At the same time judicial practice allows right-holders to control and monopolize markets through selling exclusive rights because the goods, legally obtained outside Russia but imported in Russia without the consent of the right-holder, is considered counterfeit. And parallel import is prohibited”, said Deputy Head of FAS.
On 13 February, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation ruled2 that the norms of the antimonopoly law cannot be interpreted and applied as exempting collusion of the interests of right-holders from the mechanisms of assuring constitutionally significant values such as competition3.
“Taking into account specifics of modern digital economy and the ruling of the Constitutional Court, it is expedient to expand the Law on competition to actions and agreements on exclusive rights for the results of intellectual activity and determine particular characteristics of applying the antimonopoly law on digital markets”, summed up Sergey Puzyrevskiy.
1 Part 4 Article 10 and Part 9 Article 11 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”
2 No.8-П Ruling of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation of 13.02.2018
3 Under Part 1 and Part 2 Article 34 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation
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The event is organized by Kutafin University jointly with Moscow branch of the Association of Russian Lawyers to mark the 5th anniversary of the Competition Law Department of Kutafin Moscow State Law Academy. The Department is chaired by Deputy Head of FAS Sergey Puzyrevskiy.