The implications of network economy in the field of competition

Main points of the paper. The paper outlines the current level of development of traditional approaches to competition and related legislation and practices in Russia. It also presents the results and trends of their adaptation to the present-day reality. Results. Although market competition remains the economy’s key premise, new development patterns have emerged in relation to the fundamental and legal approaches to understanding and regulating competition and the ways to protect it at a new level of changes in the anti-monopoly law subject-matter and market participants. Such patterns result from the transformation of the traditional cash commodity market into the virtual unconsolidated one and the phenomenon in which the market competition on the market is being substituted by the competition for the market with the priority of investing money in unique goods. At the same time, traditional concepts, such as the essential facility doctrine, and the notions of market share and economic market concentration have lost their explanatory power in a network economy environment. Conclusions. Results showed that the notion of “dominance” transformed as the new, hard-to-predict commodity markets and patterns of market behavior emerged; digital platforms often abused their opportunities in their respective marketplaces. It is still imperative to address the problem of efficiency of competition rules in two methods of state control, namely, the common law of private enforcement and the administrative system of direct state control. Significance of the results. On the one hand, the paper has theoretical value, as it provides scientific data on the current state of Russian legislation and additional relevant information. On the other hand, in practical terms, the study contributes to the understanding of the gap (or its absence) in the achievements in this area between Russian and foreign researchers and practitioners in the context of their implications in terms of practice and legislation. © 2020, Institute of Advanced Scientific Research, Inc.. All rights reserved.