The Eurasian Antimonopoly Association has recognized the report as the “Eurasian Competition Research of the Year 2025.” The award ceremony took place during the XII Eurasian Antimonopoly Forum in Astana, Kazakhstan, with the participation of Alexey Ivanov, Director of the BRICS Competition Law & Policy Centre, and Aldash Aitzhanov, Chairman of The Eurasian Antimonopoly Association.
The BRICS Competition Law and Policy Centre’s scientific report “From Fields to Futures: Competition, Financialization and Digitalization in Global Grain Value Chains” was named the “Eurasian Competition Research of the Year 2025” by the Eurasian Antimonopoly Association. The award was presented on May 27 during the XII Eurasian Antitrust Forum in Astana, Kazakhstan.
© HSE University
The report was prepared as part of expert support from the BRICS Working Group for the Research of Competition Issues in Food Markets. The presentation took place on September 12, 2025, on the sidelines of the 9th BRICS International Competition Conference, in Cape Town (South Africa).
The global grain market has long been controlled by an oligopoly of major agricultural traders known as the ABCD+ group (ADM, Bunge, Cargill, Louis Dreyfus Company, as well as COFCO, Olam and others). Such concentration of market power, combined with certain structural features of the market, makes it vulnerable to price volatility and various forms of speculative behavior. This negatively affects both grain producers and consumers in BRICS countries, creating risks for global food security and the sustainable development of the agricultural sector within the BRICS economies.
The report “From Fields to Futures” is the world’s first comprehensive study to analyze global grain trade value chains from an antitrust perspective. The report examines key aspects of the market power exercised by the dominant global grain traders (ABCD+), as well as other competition-related features of the market. It highlights the following trends:
▪️ Expansion of ABCD+ market power through the digitalization of grain trade — in particular, platforms such as Covantis and Tract already display multiple characteristics suggesting they facilitate coordination among ABCD+ companies and restrict competition from national and regional traders, while largely remaining outside the focus of antitrust authorities in BRICS countries.
▪️ Financialization — namely, the growing role of financial speculation surrounding the underlying commodity and influencing global grain pricing, along with the involvement of global traders in large-scale shadow banking operations — is becoming another factor driving market concentration.
▪️ Increasing corporate interconnectedness among dominant traders, including through common strategic investors, is also contributing to greater global economic concentration and coordination among leading companies.
One of the report’s key recommendations is to involve BRICS antitrust regulators in the design of the BRICS Grain Exchange initiative proposed by the bloc’s leaders. If implemented effectively, the initiative could help reduce price volatility, improve pricing transparency, and strengthen competition in the global grain market.
In the photo: Alexey Ivanov, Aldash Aitzhanov © HSE University
The Eurasian Antimonopoly Association is an organization uniting legal entities and individuals providing consulting services and/or conducting research on antitrust legislation and competition development in the markets of Eurasian countries, including the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), Central Asia, and the South Caucasus.
The Association’s members include representatives from Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
