Problems of Law Enforcement Practice of Antimonopoly Regulation in Digital Markets as an Indicator of the Need for Legislative Reform on the Competition Protection [
Based on the analysis of law enforcement practice in the field of antimonopoly regulation in digital markets, the authors justify the necessity of reforming the current legislation on the competition protection, and provide statistical data on the scale of the introduction of digital technologies. It is pointed out that the prevailing forms of competition in the global digital market are either an oligopoly or a duopoly. The article provides an overview of the practice of applying the current Russian competition law in relation to IT companies (Yandex N. V., Apple Inc., Google LLC). The article analyzes the shortcomings of the Draft Federal Law «On Amendments to the Federal Law «On Protection of Competition» («the Fifth Antimonopoly Package of Amendments»), prepared by the Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation in 2018, and propose the ways to eliminate the shortcomings of some projected standards. The author points out the need to link the concept «digital platform» with the term «information system», designated in the Law of the Russian Federation «On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection», and to take as a basis the definition enshrined in the French Law on the Digital Republic of 2016. According to the authors` opinion, the concept «network effects» can appear in the legislation only after they are supported by the results of experimentally tested methods for calculating network effects. It is proposed to legally «link» network effects with the use of big data that restricts competition. The results of successive attempts of the FAS (Federal antimonopoly Service) of Russia to limit or cancel «intellectual immunities» are considered, and the correctness of introducing a rule on the removal of such immunities in certain cases is justified. The cases of unfair competition of digital platforms associated with the manipulation of search results algorithms (including the use of interactive enriched responses) are investigated. The article describes the risks of digital ecosystems, the development of which may exacerbate the issues of dominance, in particular, due to the monopolization of data. It is concluded that the FAS legislative initiatives of the sample of 2018 need to be carefully revised in the context of the new realities of the development of IT markets.