FAS will return with inspections – Kommersant FM

Market participants expect speedy antimonopoly checks; the FAS may come to taxi aggregators and marketplaces. The fact is that the government is lifting the moratorium on antimonopoly inspections of IT companies ahead of schedule. It was announced in the spring of 2022, and it was supposed to end in 2025. The head of the FAS, Maxim Shaskolsky, announced the cancellation in early March. According to him, the FAS has accumulated “a large number of complaints about violations by dominant companies.” The regulator worked with businesses “in a mode of discussion and persuasion” and “achieved a number of results,” however, considered that control needed to be strengthened.

First of all, the authorities will deal with transportation aggregators, the author of the Taxi Ombudsman project, Anton Maksimov, is sure: “According to consumers, many prices are unreasonably high, despite the data published by the Analytical Center under the Russian Government. Taxi drivers’ expenses increased by 58%; taking into account depreciation, fuel and maintenance, the driver spends more than 3 thousand rubles per day. Officials and deputies say that over the year prices increased by 25%, and at the time of peak loads they quadrupled . Although Rosstat says that over the year the price of a kilometer of taxi travel has increased by 19.5%, this is more than two times lower than the index of non-food goods and services.

Of course, the FAS will primarily deal with tariffs and prices for travel, and the industry does not expect anything good from this investigation. Because the FAS will be the last place to deal with the problems of drivers; here Yandex will simply dictate its terms. They have already tested in Kazakhstan an option with a reduced commission for drivers during peak demand, where, by the way, antimonopoly officials fined them. We calculated statistics for December; on average, each driver “earned” 400 rubles from this reduced commission. in a month, this is in Moscow.”

At the same time, the business is ready for antimonopoly checks, lawyers are sure. Large marketplaces and aggregators build such risks into their models. The Ministry of Digital Development noted that the lifting of the moratorium will affect only a few corporations, but other IT companies may also be in the focus of the FAS, stressed managing partner of Kulik & Partners Law.Economics Yaroslav Kulik: “The very purpose of lifting this moratorium concerns marketplaces, but the text of the order says us that it is possible to conduct unscheduled inspections and initiate cases against companies accredited in the Ministry of Digital Development register, and this is not only marketplaces.

All the articles mentioned there relate to anti-competitive agreements. Recently, since the beginning of the moratorium, antimonopoly authorities have often stopped considering cases and did not conduct checks against digital companies for signs of concluding cartel agreements. Now this document gives the FAS the opportunity to continue considering such cases; it can be assumed that on some of the most critical issues on which agreement has not been reached, new cases may be opened and investigations may begin.”

However, Kommersant FM’s interlocutors doubt that the FAS will be able to effectively control IT companies. According to experts, thousands of complaints may be received from counterparties and consumers, which the service will not be able to administer. However, the regulator stated that it has “deep expertise in this matter.”

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Ivan Koryakin