About journal

Editorial Board

Journal archive

For authors

Useful links

Contacts

Authors

< Back to the list of authors

Pavlova N.

Degree	Cand. Sci. (Econ.), Associate Professor, Competition and Industrial Policy Department, Lomonosov Moscow State University; Senior Researcher, Center for Research in Competition and Economic Regulation, The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration
E-mail	pavl.ns@yandex.ru
Location	Moscow, Russia
Articles	Priorities for competition policy in Russia until 2030 Setting out the long-term priorities of competition policy, it’s impossible today to discuss them in isolation from industrial policy. New industrial policy is brought to the forefront, and competition values are its central element. In this context the article offers six major trends for competition policy up to the year 2030: a shift to «smart» antitrust regulation, developing competition with the use of IPR, lowering entry barriers, modernizing the regulation of natural monopolies, developing competition in public procurement and the auctioning off of state property, and developing competition on a regional level. Part of these trends are explained through specific measures, while part of them are left up for discussion. A set of short-term measures are proposed as well. Read more... Design and implementation of the concept of comparable markets in Russian antitrust The possible obstacles are identified for realizing the full potential of the comparable markets method in Russian antitrust and some measures to overcome them are proposed. The paper studies the criteria of market comparability formulated in Russian antitrust law as they relate to the theoretical aspects of the method of comparable markets in its different variations. A number of cases are analyzed that illustrate the main issues of implementing the method which arise from the wording of the norm in Russian law. The chosen wording not only provides a restrictive framework for the implementation of the method of comparable markets, but also influences the understanding of what constitutes the method from a practitioners’ point of view. A number of recommendations are given aimed at improving the current practice of implementing the concept of comparable markets for protecting competition. Read more... Price Parallelism on Mobile Communication Markets: Three Interpretations Price parallelism in itself is not a violation of antitrust law. However, in the mobile communication market, it is complemented by features of product characteristics and industry regulation in such a way that, as a result, it often attracts the attention of antitrust authorities as a sign of concerted actions (or agreements) restricting competition. The article shows that the existing norms in the law that describe the criteria for classifying concerted actions are based on economic models that often do not take into account some real features of the market and of the sellers and buyers. As a result, the same observable practices may have alternative interpretations that do not imply any kind of coordination between market participants. The article offers three such alternative interpretations: through the discrepancy between the expected and actual volume of service consumption, from the standpoint of the «new theory of consumer demand» and from the behavioral economics standpoint. To make a decision about the existence of a violation, these hypotheses concerning the causes of parallel behavior must be disproved with a sufficient degree of accuracy, otherwise there is a high risk of law enforcement errors. Read more... Intranet roaming: is there a market? The current case of the FAS Russia regarding the largest mobile communication operators setting different prices for telecommunication services in intranet roaming and in the home region poses the question of whether it is correct to consider such services as «one and the same product» in the antitrust definition of product markets. Antitrust methodology suggest that these services should then be close substitutes from the point of view of the consumers, which appears not to be the case. On the contrary, telecommunication services are characterized by a high degree of complementarity, including transaction complementarity on the consumer’s side. In antitrust practice, in order to determine market boundaries in such situations, the cluster market approach and the bundling approach are used in addition to the narrow method of market definition. The article discusses in detail these approaches, describes the criteria for their use and justifies the applicability of these approaches to cellular communication services. It appears that using either the cluster market or the bundling approach to defining market boundaries in the case of intranet roaming has substantial basis. Taking specific components of a cellular tariff plan and treating them as a separate product market for antitrust purposes increases the risk of type I and type II enforcement errors. Read more... National antitrust in a global context The effects of national antitrust are studied in a global context based on modeling trade between two countries with a strict specialization in the production of goods. An equilibrium is explained in terms of the choice of the competition protection mode for the case of lack of coordination in law enforcement, on the basis of the accepted assumptions regarding the incentives of the national antimonopoly authorities to act in order to maximize the total welfare on the internal market. This equilibrium entails a case in which national antimonopoly authorities choose to fight only those infringements that lead to negative effects for internal markets and avoid fighting infringements by national companies on export markets. The Pareto-improvement conditions as a result of the adjustment of the competition protection regime at the supranational level are explained, and the boundary conditions for the supranational antitrust in terms of cartel deterrence are identified. The results obtained allow us to demonstrate the sources of obstacles to the formation of a coherent competition policy at the supranational level and to find the conditions under which these obstacles can be overcome. Symmetrical extraterritoriality may be one of the options for providing Pareto improvements, but the costs and ways of its implementation will play a key role in evaluating the efficiency of such a solution. Read more... Individual Abuse of Collective Dominance in Cellular Communications: Problems of Identification Recently, discussions about the validity of the Russian practice of establishing the facts of individual abuse of collective dominance have been escalating: many experts point to a contradiction between the meaning of collective dominance, in which a small number of companies have a joint dominant position, in connection with each other, and the possibility of an individual company to abuse this position. The purpose of the article is to assess the correctness of this approach in the context of recent antitrust cases in the cellular communications market – in particular, two cases against the mobile operator “Tele2”. In the article, the applied practice is assessed in relation to the currently known results in the field of economic theory, as well as international best practices in the application of the concept of collective dominance. The findings indicate that the conclusion of the FAS Russia on the presence of the dominant position of Tele2 as part of collective dominance and the possibility of the company to exercise its market power does not correspond to either foreign practice or industrial organization theory. The source of error in the qualification of behavior is largely due to the focus of the antimonopoly authority on quantitative criteria of collective dominance to the detriment of the analysis of qualitative criteria and behavior. This case illustrates a typical tendency for such cases not to investigate the behavior of other collectively dominant market participants in relation to the behavior of the company accused of individual abuse, as well as not to investigate consumer behavior, and, in particular, their real possibilities to switch and switching actions. The article was written on the basis of the RANEPA state assignment research programme. Read more... The Effect of the Interpretation of Company Behavior on the Analysis of Market Boundaries The analysis of the state of competition in commodity markets is formally regulated by Order No. 220 of the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia dated April 28, 2010 “On Approval of the Procedure for Analyzing the State of Competition in the Commodity Market”, but in reality, the mechanical adherence to the norms of this document is not enough, since all stages of the analysis, explicitly or implicitly, are based on a certain interpretation of the relationship and behavior of the defendant, the applicant and other affected persons. A vivid illustration is the situation with the provision of wired Internet services for tenants in shopping and entertainment centers. The relevance of this issue is ensured by the presence of antimonopoly cases, which consider the compliance of the provision of such services with antimonopoly legislation. The purpose of the study is to reveal, using the example of the markets for renting premises in shopping and entertainment centers and Internet communications, how the interpretation of the company’s behavior determines the approaches to assessing the boundaries of relevant markets. For this, alternative interpretations of the relationship and behavior of Internet providers (telecom operators), owners of shopping and entertainment centers and tenants are presented; grounds for the proposed interpretations are given; the consequences of applying alternative interpretations to identifying relevant markets and their further analysis in accordance with the requirements of the legislation are described; the key questions for research are highlighted, which can allow one to compare alternative interpretations and choose the one that best corresponds to the essence of the analyzed economic relations. As a result, we show that the analysis cannot ignore the connection between communication services providers, tenants as purchasers of communication services, and owners of shopping centers. Alternative interpretations of this connection are possible from the point of view of the economic essence of these relations and relevant theoretical concepts, but in any case, its economic nature should be studied, including for the purposes of the correct application of legal norms to assess the state of competition in the affected product markets Read more... The Evolution of Antitrust Regulation of Joint Venture Agreements Cooperation agreements between competitors can be an important tool for markets to adapt to external shocks, whether those are the consequences of a pandemic or economic sanctions. In this regard, the discussion of approaches to evaluating such agreements for admissibility from the point of view of antimonopoly legislation under current conditions is relevant. The purpose of the article is to assess the current state of antimonopoly control of cooperation agreements in Russia. To do this, we use the tools of the new institutional economic theory to analyze the history of the development of the regulation of such agreements. We reveal how modern sources of possible type I enforcement errors (the erroneous prohibition of agreements that actually contribute to the growth of public welfare) are connected with the history of institutional changes in the rules governing the analysis of cooperation agreements from the point of view of antimonopoly legislation. In particular, we show that the approaches to the analysis of cooperation agreements developed during the period of validity of a specific set of rules in 2011–2015 and summarized in the Clarifications of the Presidium of the FAS Russia on the procedure and methodology for analyzing cooperation agreements (2013) currently create an overly strict control regime for such agreements after the changes in the antimonopoly law that took place in 2015. The importance of solving this problem is demonstrated in light of the ability of companies to use cooperation to mitigate the consequences of external shocks, including economic sanctions. Structural alternatives to the control of such agreements are formulated that are applicable to various actual forms of agreements between competitors, which could contribute to a better adaptation of market participants to changing conditions. Read more... Blind Spots in the Procedure for Analyzing the State of Competition in the Commodity Market For the implementation of the “fifth antimonopoly package”, FAS Russia has developed a draft amendment to the Procedure for analyzing the state of competition in the commodity market, approved by Order of FAS Russia dated April 28, 2010 No. 220 (Procedure-220). This project is currently going through the stage of public discussion, which makes relevant its analysis in terms of the challenges of the economy of modern digital markets in general, as well as methodological issues raised by the latest amendments to the Federal Law “On the Protection of competition” of July 26, 2006 No. 135-FZ in particular. The article reveals that the provisions of the project under discussion do not address all the main problems that arise in connection with the analysis of competition in digital markets: methods for analyzing market boundaries at zero prices are not proposed, there are no approaches to assessing network effects, problems of market power in conglomerate mergers are not reflected, the concept of a multilateral market and its relationship with the digital platform has not been clarified. The draft also contains inaccurate wording, leaving freedom of interpretation, which will subsequently create risks of incorrect application of antimonopoly legislation and increase the likelihood of enforcement errors. In addition, the article demonstrates that within the framework of the proposed changes, many questions and problems that are also characteristic of the analysis of traditional markets (the second criterion of the hypothetical monopolist test, analysis of the surmountability of entry barriers, limitations in the use of methods) remain unanswered. Economic analysis of law and Industrial organization theory are used as the methodological basis for the study. The result of the analysis is a set of recommendations for the regulator aimed at reducing the likelihood of enforcement errors arising as a result of gaps antimonopoly regulation. The article is of an applied nature and may be of interest to both regulatory authorities and antitrust experts. Read more...