Annotation

The article explores electronic (digital) marketplaces as a modern legal means of ensuring competition in e-commerce and the platform economy. The authors analyze the traditional institution of bidding as a competitive method of concluding a contract and argue that its digital transformation through electronic marketplaces maximizes the principles of openness, competitiveness, and non-discriminatory access, stimulating entrepreneurial activity. The paper reveals the heterogeneity and fragmentation of legislative definitions of digital platforms in Russian law, which highlights the need to establish a universal cross-sectoral concept. It also focuses on the latest regulations in the field of platform economics, which establish key pro-competitive obligations for platform operators, such as preventing discrimination and ensuring free, equal, and unrestricted access to platforms. The current legislation does not sufficiently regulate the obligations of platform owners and operators to prevent unfair and anti-competitive practices by other market participants, such as sellers, logistics intermediaries, and buyers. The authors provide specific examples of such violations and argue for the need to supplement the regulatory framework by requiring platform owners and operators to create and implement effective internal mechanisms for detecting and preventing such actions, combining legislative regulation with self-regulatory mechanisms.