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Compliance guideline The Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation (the FAS of Russia) has issued a clarification of the procedure for implementing compliance systems. This will help business to build an efficient mechanism for preventing antimonopoly risks, which includes drawing up internal regulations correctly. However, the key issue that remains open is whether the regulator will take response measures only based on the fact that a company’s compliance documents contain provisions that contradict the legislation.

Advertising on the Internet Will Be Recorded The Internet is one of the most popular sources of information and a healthy environment for cooperation and liaison between people regardless of their geographical location. However, at a time when the Internet is developing rapidly, the issue of the legal regulation of social relationships on the Internet, including in the area of the distribution of advertising, is becoming more critical. Federal Law No. 347-FZ “On amending the Federal Law 'On advertising'” dated 2 July 2021 which in particular introduces the system for keeping a record of advertising on the Internet is aimed at implementing this state function.

The Price of State Involvement In recent years there have been active discussions around the initiatives that are aimed at improving the state pricing policy. Multiple attempts are being made towards greater regulation of pricing in certain areas in the form of the introduction of additional price control tools. The purpose of this policy is not only to help entrepreneurs develop the regulated areas of activity with the help of predictable pricing rules, but also to facilitate the stable and steady development of the entire economic system. However, not all the measures that are being suggested find support in the business community.

The Supreme Court has brought reasonableness into focus The Russian Supreme Court’s Plenum has prepared a clarification on the most controversial issues of the application of anti-trust legislation by courts. On the one hand, the Court has ensured consistency with the approaches it developed previously: its Resolution No. 2 dated 4 March 2021 (the “New Resolution”) almost completely replaced Resolution No. 30 “On certain issues arising in connection with commercial courts applying antitrust legislation” dated 30 June 2008 of the Plenum of the Russian Supreme Commercial Court (the “SCC Plenum's Resolution”), except for the provisions regarding administrative liability, which remained unchanged. On the other, a striking feature of the clarifications was a signal of the need to follow the principle of reasonableness, which implies that business entities’ conduct should be assessed from the perspective of economic strategy and effectiveness.

Lessons of the Market Division Case The Eurasian Economic Commission (the “Commission”) is becoming ever more significant as a platform for antimonopoly authorities in the member states of the Eurasian Economic Union (“EAEU”) to engage with each other in the area of investigations, information exchange and the reviewing of cases that show signs of a breach of general competition rules for cross-border markets. Although the Commission’s administrative and judicial practice is not yet sufficiently extensive, it has already shaped the principal approaches to analysing such markets and helped to identify the areas where regulation requires further improvement and various tools need to be used for the closer collaboration of the Union’s controlling bodies.

Note on the application of the collective dominance rule The concept of “collective dominance” is reflected in the Federal Law “On the Protection of Competition” (the “Competition Law”). Despite the concept of “collective dominance” not being directly used in the legislation, the criteria creating the conditions for it to emerge are set out in Part 3 of Article 5 of the Competition Law. Qualitative and quantitative criteria are distinguished.