Antitrust Merger Approvals in Russia: on the Example of Retail Gasoline Market

Abstract. This paper explores the logic of the Federal Antimonopoly Service when deciding on mergers’ approvals in the Russian oil sector. The relevance of the topic depends on, firstly, the lack of a regulatory framework in Russia that governs the criteria for mergers decision-making; secondly, the industry affiliation of companies participating in mergers. However, the studies that had been conducted before had taken these industry factor just as one of the regressors. It can be anticipated that in Russia the merger control of this sector goes beyond economic theory due to specifics of the antimonopoly policy of the oil sector. The objective of this study is to verify this hypothesis by taking into account additional variables describing that specifics in econometric binary choice models. The study is conducted using a database created from the texts of merger decisions of the FAS in the oil sector of Russia. The results obtained allow us to conclude that the regulator's logic with regard to the merger control in Russian oil sector is fully consistent with the key implications of the antimonopoly policy in this sector, but it is worse consistent with the predictions of the economic theory regarding the likelihood of the emergence of anticompetitive effects and the reduction of consumers' gains. Key words: merger control, remedies, oil sector, oil products market, binary choice model, Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia