The specialized panel on competition and monopoly and digital economy was held with the presence of the head of Nasr Fintech Association of Tehran, the legal deputy of the Center for Studies and Development and Competition, the legal deputy of the Center for Studies and Development and Competition. In this panel, the issue of competition council’s entry into legal disputes of startups was discussed and the issue of “monopoly” and its various dimensions were explained.
“Reza Ghorbani”, a member of the board of directors of the organization of the computer trade union system, Iran’s economic space is currently a monopoly, and this monopoly has also entered the space of the digital economy, and the competition council must obtain the necessary expertise to enter this space and issue laws. Ghorbani believes that the Competition Council has a hasty view of entering the field of technology and does not have a precise definition of monopoly in this market.
Emphasizing that there is a monopoly in the country’s payment network, Ghorbani said: “There is a monopoly in the payment industry because we have twelve companies and no other company can be allowed to operate in this field.” But is there a monopoly in all subjects?
Ghorbani by raising the question, is monopoly inherently bad? He said, “If the answer to this question is yes; Our telecommunications, electricity and water are exclusive. Even the fire department has a private sector in the world, but here all these are the government’s monopoly, so they should all be condemned. Even a network like the Shatab network created by the central bank is a type of monopoly.”
He went on to talk about the suspicions of SnapP’s monopoly and said: “Some have condemned SnapP to create a monopoly in the landtech industry, but the main players in the markets cannot be dealt with because of the proposals they make for their development. The fact is that we, the digital economy, are used to constant instability.”
Ghorbani believes that the one-sided vote of the regulator has negative consequences and is harmful to the country’s startup ecosystem. Ghorbani emphasized the importance of the existence of specialized regulators and said: “I criticized Shaperak for several years; But I believe that the absence of this institution causes more problems. Offering the shares of payment companies in the stock market is the existence of institutions such as Shoprak. He continued: “Last year, several meetings were held with the presidential legal assistant. In these meetings, we expressed our clear opposition to this idea; Because some companies such as Landtech and Cryptocurrency have not been legislated. We resolved this challenge through interaction and dialogue, and no business activity was stopped.”
“Amir Abbas Aladdini”, the legal vice president of the Center for Studies, Development and Competition, stated in the meeting that the monopoly law does not dominate the market; Rather, it is an abuse of market dominance, and fortunately, the Competition Council is one of the specialized institutions in the field of digital economy.
He believes that the startup space is very specialized and the laws should be amended to deal with the problems of startups: “Since the need for supervision, especially in the field of digital economy, the speed of action is high, the Competition Council should speed up its action to deal with complaints and other issues of this To raise the department, in order to achieve this goal, in the first step, it must acquire the necessary expertise.
“Mohammed Mahdi Jafarian”; The director of the Center for Development and Competition Studies also stated that in the field of digital economy, due to the special conditions of this market, especially platform markets, profitability is not possible in a short period of time. The digital economy requires careful and specialized monitoring of the performance of platforms, which according to the law is the most important body for this matter, the Competition Council. He believes that the demand from startups is not so serious and high that a serious and specialized working group should be formed to solve these problems, like the issue of cars in the Competition Council. Jafarian emphasized that it is necessary to move towards specialization in order to be able to solve the problems of the startup ecosystem better and more precisely.
