FAS will look at marketplaces and aggregators
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Accredited IT companies can be exempted from the moratorium on antimonopoly control adopted in 2022, the FAS announced. The Ministry of Digital Development clarified that the cancellation will not affect all market participants. First of all, we can talk about marketplaces and aggregators: Yandex.Taxi, Wildberries and Ozon. The services themselves assured that the lifting of the moratorium will not have a negative impact on their work. But they emphasized that strict regulation can create problems for e-commerce.
In the near future, FAS will have the opportunity to conduct inspections of IT companies, head of the service Maxim Shaskolsky said during a meeting of the Federation Council Committee on Economic Policy: “The powers were slightly limited due to Resolution 448. My colleagues and I have done our work and come to the conclusion that it is time to remove antimonopoly control from the resolution, and this will be done in the coming days.”
Judging by the official’s words, first of all, marketplaces and aggregators may come under inspection: “We also have Yandex.Taxi, for example, in the registry, we cannot check them either, but now we can.” The FAS press service was unable to clarify to Kommersant when exactly the changes would be prepared and implemented.
The government introduced a three-year moratorium on inspections of accredited IT companies in March 2022 by Resolution No. 448. We are talking about both state and municipal inspections.
The Ministry of Digital Development emphasized that the FAS initiative will not affect all IT companies. Thus, according to a representative of the ministry, legislative changes discussed with the department may affect Article 10.1 of the Federal Law “On Competition”, which prohibits the abuse of the dominant position of business entities that own a digital platform: “Such digital platforms include an extremely small number of participants in the IT market, since such an organization must have a digital platform, its revenue must exceed 2 billion rubles, and the share of transactions between buyer and seller must be more than 35% of all transactions in this market.”
The Ministry of Digital Development assured that the moratorium will continue to apply to most companies: “It continues to apply to all scheduled inspections, including those related to compliance with antimonopoly legislation.”
At the end of January, Maxim Shaskolsky said that the FAS had established the collective dominant position of Wildberries and Ozon in the online trading market with a total share of about 80%.
Then the official noted complaints from consumers and counterparties about the work of marketplaces about the costs of logistics, imposition of contract terms, and the accrual of fines.
At the end of 2023, Mr. Shaskolsky talked about complaints from Yandex.Taxi users about the cost of trips, and from drivers connected to the service about working conditions. The FAS also said that Yandex.Taxi occupies a dominant position in the Russian Federation and the vast majority of regions of the country.
Anastasia Kayukova, head of antimonopoly and regulatory projects at VEGAS LEX, believes that the removal of IT companies from the moratorium, on the one hand, “could create additional administrative pressure on business,” but on the other, “will allow the FAS to promptly stop anti-competitive practices if they occur.” identified during investigations.” In her opinion, in addition to aggregators and online marketplaces, large IT companies may come under the attention of the FAS.
Yandex.Taxi claims that it is constantly introducing new mechanisms to curb price increases in taxis, maintaining the income level of drivers and transparently explaining the conditions of blocking for violations of the rules, informing the FAS.
Ozon and Wildberries assured Kommersant that they comply with antitrust laws and the lifting of the moratorium will not have a negative impact on the companies’ work.
Ozon emphasized that in recent months there has been an increase in regulatory initiatives “aimed at strictly regulating e-commerce, which could deprive the market of flexibility.” At the same time, the company added that business verification “can become a balancing factor” that will identify problem areas of specific market players without resorting to “excessive regulation of the industry.”
President of the Association of Internet Trade Companies Artem Sokolov considers it important to “assess the effectiveness of the implementation of new antimonopoly control tools before making any decisions on additional regulation.”
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