ISSUES OF OPTIMIZATION OF CRIMINAL LIABILITY FOR CRIMINAL MONOPOLISM
Background: the article analyzes the provisions of article 178 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which provides for criminal liability for encroachments on competition. At present, the question about the validity of criminalization of criminal monopolism remains relevant and is quite actively discussed in the legal literature. Understanding of this problem and its broad discussion will allow to avoid mistakes in inter-branch differentiation of responsibility for encroachments on competition and will contribute to the optimization of criminal legislation. Objective: identification of problems of criminalization of criminal monopolism and formulation of proposals for the optimization of criminal liability for encroachments on competition. Methodology: the main methods of research are the universal dialectical method of knowledge of social phenomena and processes, formal-legal, as well as other private methods of scientific knowledge: induction and deduction, analysis and synthesis, etc. Results: the current version of the criminal law knows only one method of criminal monopoly - cartel. Other illegal ways of restricting competition remain outside the scope of criminal law. Conclusions: the conducted study gave reason to believe that the criminalization of encroachments on competition is unsatisfactory. The exclusion from the text of article 178 of the Criminal Code of the RF of such acts-sequences as prevention of competition and elimination of competition is unreasonable. Criminal legislation should not limit the number of ways to monopolize the market. Any act, which leads or may lead to unlawful exclusion or elimination of competition, as well as restriction of competition on condition of causing major damage, should be recognized as a criminal offence. We propose the text of part. 1 of Article 178 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation should be revised as follows: “Unlawful restriction of competition, if this caused major damage to individuals, organizations or the state, as well as unlawful exclusion or elimination of competition...”. Note to article 178 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is proposed to be amended as follows: “Major damage in this article is damage caused to individuals in an amount exceeding one million rubles, or damage caused to an organization or the state in an amount exceeding ten million rubles”.