How To Identify Predisposition Of Markets To Cartelization?

Abstract

The fight against cartels is one of the most priority and at the same time difficult to implement areas of state anti-monopoly regulation. In Russia, an important activity of the Federal Antimonopoly Service is the suppression of anticompetitive agreements, as well as the identification of cartels in commodity markets. At the same time, the fight against cartels is carried out through criminal and administrative punishment of participants in cartel agreements, that is, only when such an agreement has already been concluded and has begun to be implemented. The methods used in the practice of the FAS for analyzing the state of competition in the commodity market do not allow identifying a market predisposition for cartelization. Due to the fact that the circumstantial evidence is increasingly important in anti-cartel investigations, it is necessary to focus on those markets where the existence of cartels is most likely. The purpose of the study is to develop a methodological tool for identifying markets that are problematic in terms of concluding and maintaining cartel agreements. The authors have formed a matrix model that combines market characteristic in a single information field, reflecting the existence of conditions for cartels in the commodity market and ensuring their sustainability. The choice of criteria is due to their presence in the standard information array, which is formed when analyzing the state of competition in commodity markets by the FAS of Russia.