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Meleshkina A.

Degree	Researcher, Center for Research in Competition and Economic Regulation, The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration
E-mail	meleshkina-ai@ranepa.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... Criteria for the choice of a benchmark price in cases concerning monopolistic pricing A critical issue for the implementation of the comparable markets method in antitrust are the criteria for choosing benchmarks. The paper focuses on the criteria for determining benchmark price levels for cases involving abuse of dominance in the form of excessive or predatory pricing. We determine the set of the most important criteria for choosing benchmark prices (such as geographical and climate conditions, standard terms of contracts, macroeconomic environment, particularities of market structures etc.) and show how the significance of specific criteria depends on the implemented form of the method and the characteristics of particular markets. The choice of criteria also introduces certain limitations on interpreting the results of comparable markets analysis, however, it is possible to soften these limitations by using additional approximations, assumptions and additional calculations. 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... Digital transformation in transport: development opportunities and risks of restricting competition Digital transformation affects all areas of the economy either implementing IT-technologies or just enjoying their spillovers. Compared to other transportation spheres, freight industry is a subject to significant competition effects. On the one hand, these effects stem from the fact that large operators can provide integrated services and carry out multimodal transportation and door-to-door delivery. On the other hand, some delivery companies tend to implement territory “zoning” strategies and specialize on the certain cargo type which may lead to cornering the market. Delivery companies in developed countries have already outperformed Russian ones in digital technologies implementation: their quality of railways and carriages, air transportation services and trucking logistics is much higher. The main obstacles of digital technologies implementation in cargo transportation industries include the need significant investments (which especially affects small companies’ performance), lack of digital aspects in the industrial policy, lobbying of large cargo companies. Fast penetration of digital technologies also causes several competitive risks. There exists a tendency towards market consolidation which is especially important in terms of the emergence of large multimodal transport companies, who may exploit its dominant position to eliminate competition. Moreover, nowadays there exist several freight platforms entrusting transportation duties to the actual carrier companies by means of vehicle-cargo matching. The business model when a platform does not own freight transport is new phenomenon for the freight industry as well as for the regulators. That is why the regulators need to take into account new digital trends in freight industry and develop their own services for gathering reliable data to keep an ear to the ground in promoting competition in the transportation sphere. 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...