ANDREY TSARIKOVSKIY: CONSUMERS SHOULD WIN

This is a very important goal of competition in any economy, including digital

Stats-Secretary, Deputy Head of FAS Andrey Tsarikovskiy talked about it at the session of the Antimonopoly Service – “Perspective competition development in the digital economy” – at St Petersburg International Economic Forum on 6 June 2019.

The session discussed the transition of the economy to “digital tracks” that generated new methods of competition for user data and market share.

Andrey Tsarikovskiy emphasized that the antimonopoly body needs new approaches and legal definitions to regulate the new economy.

“Today we use old tools to solve digital cases”, pointed out Deputy Head of FAS.

He reminded about FAS drafted “fifth antimonopoly package” designed to resolve a series of problems associated with regulating the new economy.

One of the authors of the “fifth antimonopoly package”, Alexei Ivanov, Director of the Institute of Law and Development, Higher School of Economics – Skolkovo, pointed out that the package of amendments “transfers the regulator’s attention from inter-platform to intra-platform competition when the regulator sees deviations, it should help the platform to work better”.

Alexei Ivanov emphasized that the package does not comprise the norms on regulating intellectual property, which, in his opinion, is still necessary for efficient antimonopoly regulation in Russia.

Wrapping up the session, Andrey Tsarikovskiy called upon everybody to find the necessary balance: between business and consumers, business and the regulator and jointly refine the “fifth antimonopoly package”.

He summed up: “The era of intangible assets has arrived, prime costs and dominance become things of the past, we need modern tools and hopefully the “fifth antimonopoly package” will become such new tool”.