Russia to Launch State System for Tracking Anti-Competitive Agreements Using AI

Changes have been made to Federal Law No. 135-FZ "On Protection of Competition". The document will come into force on August 1, 2025.

The information system is being created to support the activities of the FAS, which will become the platform operator. Information on the risks of concluding and implementing agreements that restrict competition will be uploaded to the state system. Regulators intend to obtain information based on the processing of data on trades, business entities, entrepreneurial activities carried out in commodity markets, as well as other information, including that contained in information systems determined by the government.

The owner of the information contained in the information system will be the state, and the powers of the owner of such information on behalf of the Russian Federation will be exercised by the FAS.

The Russian Government submitted the thematic bill to the State Duma in December 2024. The developer explained that such digitalization and automation of the process of identifying signs of concluding and implementing anti-competitive agreements using daily automatic scanning of information about all tenders conducted using AI "will ensure significant savings of budget funds, calculated in billions of rubles, due to the decartelization of state and municipal purchases and the creation of competitive conditions for tender participants."

The FAS announced the creation of the system in May 2024. At that time, the antimonopoly service reported that the automated information system "Anti-Cartel" was used in a pilot mode to investigate cartels. The FAS used the relevant developments to create a new information system - the GIS "Anti-Cartel".

The FAS is confident that with the introduction of the GIS, the regulator will be able to receive information from the information systems of state bodies and legal entities to conduct a comprehensive study of data and daily analysis of 100% of the procurement procedures carried out. The new system will allow for prompt receipt of information, reducing the number of requests sent.

Initially, the functionality of the automated information system allowed tracking only a part of the conducted trades. The GIS "Anti-Cartel" with the help of elements of artificial intelligence assumes the introduction of new, broader functionality. The FAS also drew attention to the possibility of ensuring "significant savings of budget funds due to the decartelization of state and municipal purchases and the creation of competitive conditions for participants in the trades."