Protecting the Rights of Subjects from Antitrust Violations in the United States in Civil Proceedings

Abstract

American antitrust regulation is a fairly balanced system of legal norms and court precedents that allows individuals, along with government agencies, to actively participate in law enforcement activities, thereby contributing to both the protection of their rights and the suppression of relevant violations of the law. In the context of the efforts made by the European Union and Russia to develop private antimonopoly law enforcement, the study of American experience in this area will help identify possible directions for improving Russian legislation. The subject of this study is the antitrust and civil procedure laws of the United States, the precedent decisions of the judicial authorities that form the basis of the system of legal proceedings on claims filed in connection with violations of antitrust rules. The purpose of this work is to identify the main features of American antitrust regulation and law enforcement that contribute to the active participation of private entities in countering anticompetitive behavior, to conduct a comparative study of the provisions of the US and Russian legislation regarding ways to protect the rights of individuals from monopolistic activities, and to suggest possible directions for the development of Russian antimonopoly regulation. The work uses the methodology of formal-logical analysis and comparative jurisprudence, which makes it possible to reveal the legal essence of certain methods of protecting civil rights, as well as to reveal the features of civil proceedings in antitrust claims. As a result of studying the issues of the topic, a conclusion was made about the possibility of improving Russian antimonopoly legislation based on both the experience of US legal regulation and taking into account the fundamental principles of Russian civil law. So, for the development of private law enforcement in the field of competition protection, it is proposed to establish a fine for non-compliance on a voluntary basis with the justified requirements of the victim or introduce compensation for violation of antimonopoly legislation, taking as its basis, for example, the amount of the offender’s profit for the relevant period. The paper also concluded that the current system of class actions in the United States is more effective in terms of stimulating private enforcement than that provided for by Russian procedural law.