Price pressure on marketplaces is not a new practice, but until now it existed in a gray legal area. The site offers the seller a "recommended" discount for participating in the promotion, not formally obliging, but actually limiting the visibility of the product card to those who refuse. The seller either reduces the price at his own expense, or loses his position in the search results.
The FAS decided to close this loophole with a specific monetary sanction. A fine of up to 400,000 rubles is an amount that is not critical in itself for a large site, but when applied systematically to each episode of pressure, it adds up to significant costs, especially if the antimonopoly service begins to record violations en masse.
The practical complexity of law enforcement lies in the evidence base. Price pressure is rarely formalized by a direct written requirement — more often it is an algorithmic downgrade in ranking or informal communication through the site manager. That is why the FAS requires the sites to review the working conditions systematically, rather than deal with individual cases after the fact.
For sellers, the appearance of a specific sanction changes the balance of power in disputes with the site. Until now, the complaint about the forced price reduction rested on the absence of a formal violation — the marketplace could always refer to the voluntary participation in the promotion. Now the seller has a legal instrument: to record the fact of pressure and contact the FAS with a real prospect that the site will be held responsible.
It is worth collecting evidence now — screenshots of correspondence with site managers, changes in positions in the issue after rejecting the imposed discount, letters with formulations like "we recommend lowering the price to maintain the rating." When amendments are adopted, such materials will become the basis for a specific appeal, and not just a reason to complain to the void.
