Maxim Ali has commented on the FAS draft law to extend antitrust regulation to agreements and actions to exercise exclusive rights

Maxim Ali - Partner

The Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation has proposed to expand legislation on the protection of competition. In particular, the current rules of law are proposed to supplement Article 11.2, which establishes restrictions on agreements between persons engaged in the sale of goods on the same market that contain the results of their intellectual activity, including computer programmes and databases. The bill also provides for a ban on agreements on the granting and/or transfer of the rights to use the results of intellectual activity, if such agreements contain specific conditions restricting competition in the market of goods produced using intellectual property, as well as in the IT market. In addition, antitrust laws may prohibit monopolistic market companies from managing intellectual property rights if they result, or may lead to, limiting or ending competition.

According to Maxim Ali, Head of IP / IT Practice at Maxima Legal, the emergence of the proposed FAS regulation is inevitable in the context of the digital transformation of the economy. “Using the example of the largest players in IT, we see how intellectual property, being a legal monopoly, becomes an instrument of economic monopolisation of the market. The example of Microsoft, given in the explanatory note, confirm this”, Maxim explained to Advokatskya Gazeta.

Of course, he added, such regulation should be introduced very carefully. “For example, a number of antitrust claims may conflict with standard restrictions in commercial concession agreements. For example, Article 1033 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation allows a franchisee to prohibit the entering into of similar agreements with other copyright holders. On the other hand, the same prohibition is considered unacceptable in the new wording of paragraph 2 of Part 2 of Article 11.2 of the Law on Protection of Competition.”

To read the full article (in Russian), please see the Advokatskaya Gazeta website >>>