PRESS: Russian antitrust offers to stiffen e-commerce regulation

MOSCOW, Jan 30 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service has crafted a bill on the regulation of competition under digitalization, including tougher requirements for trading floors in the Internet and punishment for using price algorithms, which are widely spread in e-commerce, business daily Kommersant reported on Tuesday.

The bill introduced the notion of “a network effect”, meaning receipt of economic advantages from the number of users of a trading platform, including thanks to collection and processing of data. The effect could become a basis to find a dominant position on the market by the company owning the platform, even if it holds less than 35% of the market.

Another notion stipulated by the bill is “a price algorithm”, which is a software program monitoring, calculating, setting and controlling prices of certain goods or improving activities in trading.

The antimonopoly service also wants its powers to be expanded if a company fails to follow a warrant issued to approve a deal. In this case, the authority intends to ask court to ban a turnover of goods of such a company in the country.

In case of foreign companies, the service wants to be able to authorize the use of intellectual property without the company’s consent “on the conditions set by the antimonopoly service” in the country.

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