The article is devoted to the study of prerequisites for the codification of competition protection legislation.

The author starts from the history of competition law, which is divided into four stages, and comes to the conclusion that Russian competition law was formed after the transition of the Russian economy to the market and does not have continuity with pre-existing legislation.

The study of the current state of competition law allowed the author to draw a conclusion about the relevance of its codification. This conclusion is justified, in particular, by the considerable volume of regulatory material that is devoted to the protection of competition, its distribution on different legislative acts, as well as the presence of internal conflicts and inconsistencies in it.

The importance of the historical method in the research of all legal phenomena and processes have been highlight a long time ago — so even pre-revolutionary Russian jurists noted that history “indicates a natural cause of existing ugliness and all of this or that condition of criminal law, it states the source of its progressiveness, and provides data for the evaluation of both, old and new, theories and criminal law teachings”. Therefore, the current research and debate on the criminal liability of legal regulation of the problems of anti-competitive agreements should be anticipated by highlighting the evolution of the relevant norms, the development of which took place within the boundaries of three periods — pre-revolutionary, soviet and modern or post-soviet.

The author, referring to the original sources, presents the historiography of the evolution of domestic legislation in the field of criminal law protection of competition, and discovers the prototypes of current prohibitions on anticompetitive agreements and mechanisms for identifying such violations.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the concept and prerequisites of consolidating the institution of antitrust compliance in the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”. The history and problems of the development and adoption of the Federal Law of 01.03.2020 No. 33-FZ “On Amendments to the Federal Law” On the Protection of Competition “, which defines the legal basis of antitrust compliance, is examined.

The concept of antitrust compliance, the prospects for its implementation in the activities of legal entities of Russia (taking into account the relevant experience of individual foreign countries) are considered. It also analyzes the possibility of classifying the presence of an antitrust system in companies as extenuating circumstances in case of violations of the relevant legislation. Factors that can increase the productivity of this system are investigated.

In this article, the author presents an operational summary and analysis of the most important decisions made by competition agencies in the short-term period of the COVID-19 pandemic (march—may 2020) and aimed at ensuring the functioning of markets and maintaining competition, as well as expert opinions of some analysts on the facts of the decisions made. The main approaches that are presented on the on-line platforms of the Organization for economic cooperation and development, the European Commission, the site CONCURRENCES: Antitrust Publication & Events, as well as materials of the FAS of Russia on taking operational measures to counter COVID-19 are described.

Antimonopoly regulation of the digital economy is nowadays one of the most significant regulatory issues. This article analyzes the essence of the product in the sphere of the digital economy, defines it and formulates its features. The authors conclude that the term “digital asset” is the most suitable term for the phenomenon considered, and provide arguments to support their position. The authors conclude that the traditional understanding of goods, inherent to the present antitrust regulation, does not take into account the specifics of digital goods and needs to be adapted.

In the article in theory examines the problems of the development of public-private partnership in the scientific and technological sphere in the competitive aspect and taking into account the provisions of the Strategy for Scientific and Technological Development of the Russian Federation. The need to use economic and ideological instruments to encourage business to increase investment in science is shown. The ways to further improve the legal and institutional framework for successful scientific and technological development challenges within the framework of public-private partnership in the competitive area are shown.

The subject of the research is the Russian market of mergers and acquisitions in the period from 2009 to 2019. The author has examined the economic essence of mergers and acquisitions, analysed the number of transactions of both types on the Russian market. The article analyses foreign participation in the Russian market of mergers and acquisitions reveals a tendency to its linear decline from 2011 to the present. Also were identified three sectors of the Russian economy leaders in the number of target companies (banks, agriculture, transport and infrastructure). A conclusion has been formulated on the negative impact of the current economic situation on the Russian and global market for mergers and acquisitions, suggesting a decrease in the number and amount of mergers and acquisitions in the coming years.

The article is devoted to the modern state of insurance organizations in the financial market. The goals, problems, indicators of insurance activity are considered, attention is paid to issues and problems of competition, state regulation and control. The norms of the current legislation are analysed, and ways of improvement are proposed.

The article is devoted to assessing the possible consequences of the adoption of Draft Law No. 912246-7 “On amending the Federal Law «On the treatment of medicines” and “On the basics of protecting the health of citizens in the Russian Federation” introduced in the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation on March 2nd, 2020. Critical review leads the authors to the conclusion that this draft law requires significant revision to the second reading, as it does not address the main issues of countering the monopolization of the pharmacy market and does not contribute to the support of domestic drug manufacturers.

The article examines the experience of the national audit office of the United Kingdom in conducting an audit of the effectiveness of budget funds aimed at providing medicines to English citizens. The reasons for the sharp increase in budget expenditures for providing the population with reproduced medicines in 2017—2018 are described in detail.

The article analyzes the shortcomings of the system of regulation of drug pricing procedures and the resulting risks to the budget of the national health system in United Kingdom.

It is concluded that the effectiveness audit has allowed us to identify not only the reasons for significant overspending of the NHS budget to provide the population with medicines, but also to assess the actions of organizations authorized by the UK Government to address issues of regulation of the pharmaceutical market.

The article explores the new approaches of the Federal Antimonopoly Service to the application of certain provisions of the law on the control of foreign investment in business entities of strategic importance.

The question of the correlation of the concepts of “control” and “the possibility of blocking decisions” was examined, as well as the problems of legal uncertainty re mandatory preliminary approval of a transaction in which a foreign investor plans to purchase shares of a business entity that is related to the strategic type of activity.

The authors concluded that it is necessary and advisable to classify a business company as strategic based on legislation by its implementation of a type of activity that is adjacent to strategic.

On the example of Yakutia, the territorial features and problems of applying the reference approach to the regulation of tariffs for utilities, in particular, to the regulation of tariffs for thermal energy, are considered. A number of conclusions and practical recommendations on improving tariff regulation at the regional level have been formed.

The review provides an analysis of the legal positions of arbitration courts in cases of violations of antitrust laws committed by abuse of a dominant position, setting a monopolistically high price, and entering into anticompetitive agreements between bidders and customers; claims of the antimonopoly authority; practice reducing the size of the administrative fine for violations of antitrust laws.

Purpose: the formation of uniform approaches in law enforcement practice in cases of violation of antitrust laws.

In this review of the decisions of the Appeals Board of the Federal Criminal Service of Russia, the authors consider cases for the first quarter of 2020, containing legal positions important for maintaining uniformity of the law enforcement practice of antitrust authorities. Thus, the first of the cases considered shows the importance of observing the procedure for considering cases of violation of antitrust legislation, in particular, the procedure for forming a commission, the violation of which will lead to the annulment of acts of the territorial antitrust authority. In the second case, the Appeal Board of the Federal Civil Service of Russia addresses the question of the validity of concluding a state contract with a single supplier. The third solution considered addresses the always pressing problem of proving unfair competition.