Putin signed the law on the introduction of antitrust restrictions for marketplaces

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law that introduces antitrust restrictions for marketplaces and aggregators. Document published on the official portal of legal information.

The law imposes restrictions on marketplaces that comply with the following criteria:

• May not allow or remove sellers from the site;
• The share of transactions passing through them exceeds 35% of the total market;
• Annual revenue exceeds 2 billion rubles.

Such marketplaces will be banned:

• Set the lowest or highest price for a product;
• Set different prices for the same product;
• Remove a product from sale if this will increase the cost;
• Impose unfavorable terms of the contract or refuse to conclude it for unreasonable reasons;
• Without good reason to reduce or stop the release of a product for which there is a demand;
• Set the maximum low or maximum high cost of their services;
• Create discriminatory conditions; restrict or prevent entrepreneurs from entering or leaving the site.

The FAS Russia will be responsible for identifying violations of the new law by marketplaces. The law comes into force on September 1, 2023.

Bill was developed after the March conflict between entrepreneurs and the Wildberries site. The marketplace has introduced fines for the owners of pickup points in the amount of the full amount of the goods if the buyer returns a defective item or if there was another item in the package.

After that, in many cities of Russia, the owners of the points of issue of orders began to protest. They demanded “fair terms” from the Wildberries and a revision of the penalty policy. As a result, the State Duma drew attention to the problem.

Anastasia Larina