OREANDA-NEWS. September 29, 2008. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) recognized that "SOGAZ" OJSC, "Ingosstrakh" Open Joint-Stock Insurance Company, "Alpha-Strakhovanie" OJSC, "Gefest" Joint-Stock Insurance Company, "RESO-Garantia" Open Joint-Stock Insurance Company, "Rosgosstrakh" OJSC and "Soglasie" Insurance Company" Ltd. violated Clause 3 Part 1 Article 11 of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition" (dividing the goods market according to the buyers and sellers), reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

Earlier FAS Russia received notifications from "Ingosstrakh" Open Joint-Stock Insurance Company, "Alpha-Strakhovanie" OJSC, "Gefest" Joint-Stock Insurance Company, "RESO-Garantia" Open Joint-Stock Insurance Company, "Rosgosstrakh" OJSC, "Soglasie" Insurance Company" Ltd. and "SOGAZ" OJSC on concluding an agreement for creating the Sochi Insurance Pool.

The objective of the agreement is to ensure comprehensive insurance coverage of the property interests of economic agents involved in preparing and organizing the Olympic Games 2014, in particular, by developing the schemes to insure the risks of preparing and organizing the Olympics.

According to the petition of "Military-Insurance Company" OJSC, the pool members agreed to jointly develop and propose to the executive bodies standard-setting initiatives to regulate the system of comprehensive insurance coverage for construction of the Olympic facilities.

The Petitioner believes that the above arrangements and actions of the members of the Sochi Insurance Pool can result in a number of antimonopoly violations, in particular:

- fixing or maintaining the same prices for insurance services;

- territorial division of the market; or dividing the insurance market between insurance companies or according to the range of insurance services;

- preventing entry of other insurance companies to the insurance market.

FAS Russia also received a petition form the Russian Ministry of Finances that requested the FAS Russia's opinion on the letter sent by Mr Yanov, the Chairman of the Board of "SOGAZ" OJSC to the Government of the Russian Federation. The letter contains a suggestion that the most financially stable insurance organizations should be selected in an open tender between the members of the pool to ensure sophisticated insurance coverage at all stages of the "Sochi-2014" project. Thus, members of the Sochi Insurance Pool proposed to restrict the number of insurance companies, that can offer insurance services for the "Sochi-2014" project, to only pool members.

Analysis of the presented materials confirms that such actions of the pool members were aimed at gaining advantages over other market players in insuring the property interests of the economic agents involved in preparing and organizing the Olympic Games 2014.

FAS Russia will issue determinations to the companies on supporting competition and will initiate an administrative case under Article 14.32 of the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Violations within the statutory period.

Under Article 14.32 of the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Violations, if an economic agent enters into a competition-restrictive agreement, forbidden by the antimonopoly legislation of the Russian Federation, or is involved on concerted actions, that restrict competition and are forbidden by the antimonopoly legislation of the Russian Federation, such activities are punishable by administrative fines: upon officials - from 17 000 to 20 000 Rubles, or disqualification for the period of one to three years; and upon legal persons - from one hundredth to fifteen hundredths of the proceeds of the violator from selling the goods (works, services) on the market where the violation occurred.