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Alexander Egorushkin and Anastasia Shastitko led a workshop entitled “Price Increases: If you really want to, can you?”, which focused on antitrust risks in corporate pricing on the markets of the Eurasian Economic Union.
The workshop was structured around practical “what if…” scenarios. Alexander Egorushkin moderated the discussion and invited participants to analyse a series of baseline cases, while the participants assessed them from both a regulator’s perspective and through the lens of economic reasoning. The scenarios covered three key areas: justified price increases; non-standard pricing tools, from reducing discounts to tender mechanisms; and market participants’ access to information about one another’s prices.
Anastasia Shastitko commented on the scenarios from the perspective of economic expert analysis, explaining when a price increase may have an objective economic justification and when it may give rise to regulatory risks for businesses. Particular attention was paid to issues of individual and collective dominance.
The discussion brought together representatives of leading competition authorities and professional associations across the region, including the Antitrust Regulation Department of the Eurasian Economic Commission, the Agency for Protection and Development of Competition of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and the Eurasian Antitrust Association.
As part of the forum, Antitrust Advisory partner Evgeny Khokhlov also delivered a presentation entitled “Regulation and self-regulation as an alternative to traditional antitrust regulation in digital markets”.
In his presentation, Evgeny discussed why traditional antitrust tools do not always keep pace with platforms and new digital practices, and why there is no simple, one-size-fits-all solution.
The presentation examined the principal approaches to regulating digital platforms: traditional antitrust regulation, sector-specific and targeted regulation, and self-regulation.
In Evgeny’s view, none of these approaches can be regarded as a universal solution. The most effective model combines several tools: established traditional regulation, targeted regulatory responses and self-regulation by market participants. This approach makes it possible to draw on the advantages of each tool while mitigating their respective limitations.
A separate part of the presentation was devoted to Russian practice in the self-regulation of digital platforms, including the role of the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia and the Expert Council in developing the relevant instruments. Examples discussed included the Principles of interaction between participants of digital markets (2021), Good Practices for combating counterfeiting on marketplaces (2023), the White Paper on Preventing the Sale of Counterfeit Goods (2024), and the Memorandum on Fair Practices for Digital Platforms, adopted by Wildberries, Ozon and Avito in 2025.
The forum programme and materials are available via the link.