FAS: ANTIMONOPOLY IMMUNITIES SHOULD BE CHANGED IN LINE WITH DIGITALIZATION OF THE ECONOMY

During the XI St. Petersburg International Legal Forum, representatives of the authority discussed trends in the development of antimonopoly and advertising regulation in the current modern conditions

Sergey Puzyrevsky, State Secretary – Deputy Head of the FAS Russia, noted that work is continued on the fifth antimonopoly package, which is under consideration in the State Duma. Currently, the use of existing traditional mechanisms for regulating the operation of digital platforms is insufficient, since they do not fully meet the criteria of dominant companies. Taking into account the growing share of e-commerce, it is necessary to create effective mechanisms to protect citizens from possible abuses in the digital space.

Besides, a session on the development of preventive mechanisms in the implementation of state control on the example of antimonopoly regulation was held within the framework of the event. Mariana Matyashevskaya, Head of the Legal Department of FAS Russia, spoke about the effectiveness of the institute of prevention provided for by the Law on Protection of Competition. For example, in the period 2018-2022, the share of executed warnings ranged from 71 to 92 %, depending on the type of violation and the period.

She also touched upon the topic of mandatory requirements for compliance with legislation. She proposed to provide for mitigation of administrative responsibility for certain types of federal state control in the event of termination of the violation, as well as to enable the authorities to determine a list of violations for which exclusion or mitigation of liability in the event of prompt termination of the violation would be effective. This will make it possible to quickly eliminate violations in cases where the interests of consumers are affected, which in general will bring control over compliance with mandatory requirements to a new level, taking into account the balance of interests of all participants in legal relations.

Tatiana Nikitina, Head of the Department for Control over Advertising and Unfair Competition of FAS Russia, made a presentation at the session "New Challenges and Old Problems: Should the law on advertising be changed?". She said that the basic norms of the Law on Advertising correspond to modern trends. The discussion of certain provisions is related to the requirements for the methods of placement or advertising of certain types of goods.

For example, changes were adopted regarding the establishment of the order of advertising on the Internet.

According to FAS Russia, it is necessary to solve existing issues when distributing information through telecommunication networks. Now FAS Russia, jointly with the authorities and market participants, is working on various approaches.

One of the areas of activity may be the unification of digital means of advertising distribution with the help of ecosystems of services that were previously used separately. The representative of FAS Russia suggested that the expert and business community should already work out this situation through self-regulation.