SERGEY PUZYREVSKIY: MARKET POWER SHIFTS TO TECHNOLOGICAL COMPANIES

Entering a new stage of the economy, the antimonopoly law requires transformation for adequate response to the modern challenges

Deputy Head of FAS Sergey Puzyrevskiy took part in the Section on the “Rights and obligations of participants of economic activity and public power in the competition law: searching the balance of interests” at the IX Moscow Legal Week.

He described the latest legislative initiatives, particularly, under the frame of the National Competition Development Plan.

Sergey Puzyrevskiy clarified that “the situation is changing and the real sector of the economy is losing its positions, the market power is shifting to technological companies. We are entering a new state of the economy and the existing law does not allow adequately answering unfair actions of owners of digital platforms, big data”.

In this context, FAS has drafted the fifth digital antimonopoly package that introduces possibility to regulate digital platforms in the antimonopoly sphere.

Today, there is a discussion on recognizing digital platforms dominant if they exercise a decisive impact upon the market; for example, when producers are forced to give a significant portion of their revenue to platforms. The speaker explained that it concerns, first of all, large foreign companies.

FAS pays considerable attention to searching the balance in the antimonopoly regulation and the law on intellectual property.

“We face increasingly more and more often abuses related to intellectual property, however, we cannot react adequately due to the existing blocks in the antimonopoly law”, emphasized Sergey Puzyrevskiy. “A mega-important problem is not solved, since if not today, then tomorrow there will be no projects without intellectual property”.

Finally, he described reforms of natural monopolies.

“We propose that only those entities that offer services employing network assets can be recognized natural monopolies”, concluded Deputy Head of FAS.

Background:

The IX Moscow Legal Week – a joint International Research-to-Practice Conference of the Law Faculty of Moscow State University and the XIII International Research-to-Practice Conference of Kutafin Moscow State Law University – Kutafin readings.