Журнал ЗАКОН

On the basis of the most noted cases, including Google and Microsoft, the authors explore the challenges posed to antitrust law by the innovative digital environment in light of the actions of major players in platform markets. Besides, the authors have analysed the unique Russian experience of counteraction to monopolistic activities in digital markets, which has not been covered by the doctrine so far.

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Keywords: antitrust policy, protection of competition in the digital environment, digital platforms, Google, Microsoft

The emphasis put on innovation as the common objective of intellectual property law and competition law, and the correspondent shift of attention towards the dynamics of economic change, may well be a leitmotiv in recent policy documents and theoretical discussions. The paper explores ways the IP institutions (patent and trademark offices, courts) have responded to the concerns usually expressed by competition lawyers and economists that the current IP system does not adequately take into account the effects of IP rights on innovation and consumers. Finally, the author ponders on the role competition authorities should play in this context and on how the interaction and collaboration between competition authorities and IP offices might be organised in a better way.

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Keywords: competition law, patent law, antitrust regulation, intellectual property, limitation of IP-rights

There is no doubt that proprietary technologies form the basis of technical standards. Standartisation, which is the most important tool for market development, seeks a balance between the interests of consumers applying technical standards and those of right holders whose projects have become the basis of these standards. Fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory public requirements for licence conditions are to be set. The authors explain why FRAND commitments to licence, widely used throughout the world, still could not be implemented in Russia’s legal system. They suggest to review theoretic and legal approaches to the correlation between IP and anitrust law, as well as between standards and patents.

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Keywords: intellectual property, patents, standartisation, FRAND licensing, antitrust law

The authors analyse main means of regulating and ensuring competition in financial markets. The latest economic crisis has proved that reliable and effective methods for regulating financial markets are at issue in political and legal context. Legal regulations on protection of competition in financial and commodity markets were unified after the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” had come into force in 2006. However, two questions arise: are the methods of antitrust regulation, applied in commodity markets, effective enough for a financial market? Are financial services so specific that they demand the development of separate effective regulatory methods? Thе paper is an attempt to find answers to these questions.

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Keywords: comparative antitrust law, financial market, market of banking services, competition, means of regulation of competition

The authors focus on the application of the two-sided markets concept to product markets research for the purposes of antitrust legislation. The key definitions are explored and the basic stages of product market research are related with the results of the two-sided market concept. Special attention is paid to the product market boundaries, barriers to entry and the market power of the markets with cross-network effects.

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Keywords: two-sided markets, cross-network effects, platforms, competition policy

The paper is devoted to the analysis of the content and structure of concurrent estate. Having united certain expert opinions with recent conceptual trends, one can find out that all minimum required features of joint tenancy are properly reflected in a complex of two non-homogenous interconnected legal relationships, which are property relationship and obligation relationship presupposing mutual restraints between the co-owners. Starting from this concept as from the simplest form of co-tenancy, one can endlessly complicate its forms by hording additional conditions arising from the other legal relationships between the joint proprietors or directly from the legal provisions. So, shares in property should be regarded as one of external factors which are not essential for the subject-matter of concurrent estate.

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Keywords: concurrent estate, joint property, share in ownership

On the basis of the idea that a tax benefit is a tax exemption on the received economic profit, the author concludes that VAT exemptions envisaged in the Russian Tax Code may be treated as benefits only if the goods are sold to persons exempt from VAT. The current legal regulations violate the principles of economic basis of tax and the neutrality of VAT.

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Keywords: economic basis of tax, tax benefit, VAT, principle of neutrality

The article 782 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation is critically analysed in this paper. The author marks demerits of the client’s right to repudiate the paid services agreement since a client is obliged to refund the provider only his expenses, but not the proportional part of fee. As for the provider’s right to repudiate the agreement, it is issued that mostly there are no political and legal grounds for it. In some contracts (e.g., on medical services) the repudiation of the contract by a provider without a reason may rudely disrupt the interests of the client. The courts practice covered by the paper prove that the provisions of the article 782 are regarded as mandatory. The author argues that it is a wrong point of view. Moreover the recent changes of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation allow to make a contract provision for compensation for repudiation. The author comes up with ideas for the modernisation of the article 782 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation.

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Keywords: paid services agreement, repudiation of contract, compensation for repudiation, mandatory nature of rules, freedom of contract

This paper deals with the legal analysis of the establishment of the conception “fiduciary” at different stages of civil law development. The author unfolds how the attitude to the concept has been changing, its application and how it became the base of such mechanisms which are called “title security” today. A special place is devoted to types of fiduciary legal transactions in present Russian law.

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Keywords: fiduciary legal transaction, title security, security interest, irrevocable proxy

The paper is focused on the problem of relation between two elements of the legal system of the European Union: supranational EU law and national law of the Member States. The contradiction between the abovementioned components is induced due to the abolition of extradition procedures and implementation of the European Arrest Warrant. The main rulings of the new institution are not consistent with the constitutional provisions of the Member States. The author comes to the conclusion that the nature of relations between the mentioned components makes it impossible to define the priority of a particular element. Thus, the most appropriate approach is a compromise between the two components.

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Keywords: European Arrest Warrant, EAW, European Union law, supranational law, European integration