Antitrust Regulation in the Digital Era

On July 31 - August 1, Director of the Institute Alexey Ivanov took part in an international conference organised by the Department of Economic Research of the Administrative Council for the Protection of Competition of Brazil (CADE) titled 'Designing Antitrust for the Digital Era Conference'.

The event took place over two days at the site of the Brazilian Ministry of Justice. The stated goal was to discuss the adaptation of Brazilian antitrust laws to the "new rules of the game” in digital markets. On the first day of the conference, a plenary meeting was held with the participation of representatives of state authorities, and the second day was devoted to more in-depth and problem-oriented panel discussions with the participation of leading antitrust experts from around the world. The 'Uses and Misuses' panel discussed how companies use various data and information related to abuse of monopoly power, restrictions on market entry, and the possible response measures by competition authorities. The differences between conventional and digital markets were the subject of an 'Evidence of Exclusion and Damages' session: participants analysed the arguments and evidence that the international authorities took into account when making decisions on significant court cases in the area of ​​antitrust.

 

The final panel, 'Remedies in Digital Markets', focused on legal instruments to protect competition in the digital circuit.

 

Alexey Ivanov presented to the conference participants the preliminary results of a study by the BRICS Antitrust Centre 'Antitrust Regulation in the Digital Economy for the Benefit of the BRICS Countries', whose final results will be presented in September.

 

In the process of transforming legislation under the new conditions of the digital economy, international cooperation is one of the key requirements. “If you transform together, you can strengthen each other - for example, by combining bodies of analyzed market data, the antitrust authorities of the BRICS countries can more accurately determine economic trends and more accurately apply antitrust responses”, noted Alexey.