The Ministry of Industry and Trade has long wanted to rewrite the rules of trade in favor of Russian manufacturers. The Federal Antimonopoly Service slows down the most stringent initiatives with the same regularity. The next round of this confrontation took place in April.
The FAS did not support the ministry's new trading model. The specific parameters of the proposal were not publicly disclosed in full, but it is known that the initiative concerned the regulation of the working conditions of marketplaces and the ratio of Russian and foreign goods on the platforms.
The FAS's position is fundamental: the service consistently protects the competitive environment from tools that can create advantages for some market participants at the expense of others. In this case, the regulator considered that the proposed model creates precisely such risks.
This is not the first conflict between the two agencies over marketplaces. In March, the FAS sent warnings to Ozon and Wildberries for imposing conditions on sellers. At the same time, the Ministry promoted its own agenda to protect domestic producers. Now the two regulation vectors have collided again.
For importers and sellers of imported goods on marketplaces, blocking the initiative is a temporary relief. The model of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, apparently, provided for preferences for Russian goods, which automatically meant additional barriers to imports. The Federal Antimonopoly Service granted a postponement, but did not reverse the trend itself.
The final version of marketplace regulation continues to be formed. The law on the platform economy with mandatory data transfer to the Federal Tax Service comes into force in October 2026. Against this background, there is an ongoing battle between the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Federal Antimonopoly Service for trade rules.
