“Benefit” as an essential element of the restriction of competition by object

The article is devoted to the problems of antitrust and criminal evaluation of the actions of the participants of the cartel agreement. When analyzing modern law enforcement practice, we have come to the conclusion about the definition of the “benefit” of each participant in the agreement as one of the essential elements of the objective aspect of the corpus delicti provided for in Article 178 of the Criminal Code of Russia. As a part of the study, we have demonstrated in a well-argued manner a typical task for the antimonopoly authority to impute the “benefit” attribute, which will contribute to increasing the antitrust, criminal law impact on the stabilization of public relations in the field of competition in product markets.