Cartels, Syndicates, and Trusts in the Russian Empire: Legal Regulation and its Significance for Digital Ecosystems in Contemporary Law

The paper provides a historical and legal analysis of the development of antitrust regulation of business associations in pre-revolutionary Russia, covering the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and based on a study of regulatory legal sources, including various editions of criminal and civil legislation of the Russian Empire. Particular attention is given to identifying the systemic contradiction between formal prohibitive norms and the objective economic necessity of industrial cooperation. The analysis demonstrates that the dual position of state authorities expressed in the de facto recognition of syndicates while formally maintaining a general prohibition on restraints of competition created a persistent regime of legal uncertainty. At the same time, judicial practice consistently refused to enforce cartel agreements, referring to their incompatibility with the fundamental principles of the legal order. This legal conflict led to the emergence of syndicates as a compromise organizational and legal form combining elements of corporate and contract law. Based on a study of the scholarly legacy of leading Russian legal theorists, the paper reconstructs theoretical proposals for developing a differentiated approach to assessing restrictive agreements and concludes that historical experience remains practically significant for modern antitrust regulation. Special attention is also devoted to the regulation of digital ecosystems as a new form of economic coordination. For these structures, the oversight mechanisms proposed by pre-revolutionary legal scholars, as well as the rule of reason, taking into account economic efficiency and the actual impact of agreements on the competitive environment, remain highly relevant.

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