BANK OF CASES WILL ALLOW TO USE RUSSIAN AND FOREIGN EXPERIENCES TO STUDY MARKETS

It concerns the tools used by specialists of the antimonopoly bodies to analyze markets in the conditions of evolving economy and competition

“Legal and economic issues of analyzing the state of competition on the markets” Research-to-Practice Conference took place in St Petersburg on 7 February 2020. Speaking at the session on “Economic aspects of evaluating the state of competition on goods markets”, Head of FAS Department for Industry Control, Nelli Galimkhanova, focused on some practical points in analyzing the state of competition on goods markets.

The speaker informed that market analysis is regulated by № 220 FAS Order [1] that outlined economic methods of studying market characteristics. The Order focuses on market structure and its quantitative indicators. At the same time, according to Nelli Galimkhanova, in some cases the specified methods and procedures do not always suffice and are not always necessary for use.

“The world is changing, the economy is evolving. Economic thought and competition have been evolving along with industry evolution. We live in the so called “Industry 4.0” epoch and “smart production” industry when it is possible to talk about behavioural economy, when behaviour of market participants and consumers can be irrational, when consumer opinions can be controlled through big data, etc. And it also contributes to changing the foundations of competition”, pointed out Head of FAS Department for Industry Control.

In the speaker’s view, the modern economy raises multiple questions to market studies: how consumer opinions should be evaluated under “personalized targeting”, which methods of defining product and geographic market boundaries can ensure objective conclusions about the state of competition, on what scientific theories and models analysis of the state of competition should be built in the modern conditions?

“Competition development trends show that an emphasis is shifting towards qualitative criteria of assessing dominant positions. It is also possible to talk about use of new quantitative indicators for estimating market scope and shares of its participants such as number of users, traffic volume, number of transactions in  monetary terms”, infomredNelli Galimkhanova.

As prospective development of documents regulating methods of market analysis, Nelli Galimkhanova mentioned liberalising the provisions on a list of economic methods and market studies and the priority of their use, tightening requirements for justifying study methods and indicators as well as creating a base of analytical reports describing the applied research methods.  

“Assuming that at the moment we do not have a full list of tools, which can be employed in analysis, a bank of cases should be created to enable using both Russian and foreign experience of market studies, with the focus of attention on tools”, concluded Head of FAS Department for Industry Control.

Background:

The event was organized by FAS; “Yurist” Publishing Group; the Competition Law Department at Kutafin Moscow State Law Academy; the Department of Legal Protection of Economic Competition Law, St Petersburg State University; St Petersburg State University of Economics.

[1] № 220 Order “On approving the procedure for analyzing the state of competition on a market” of 18.04.2018.