Economics of Criminal Sanctions on Antitrust Law Violation

Abstract

As of October 30, 2009 changes and amendments in the content of the article 178 of the Criminal Code of Russian Federation have been enacted. They allow to extend the use of criminal sanctions against violators of antitrust law in order to make the enforcement of legal rules supporting competition more effective. At the same time mistakes in the process of enforcement can decrease the efficiency of antitrust in the sense that under the given level of deterrence the burden of type I errors will be higher than the acceptable one. The goal of the article is to discuss the circumstances that can influence the effectiveness of criminal liability.