OREANDA-NEWS. On November 17, 2008 the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) recognized that the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation violated Article 15 of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition" (competition-restrictive actions/lack of actions by executive bodies), reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

The case was initiated upon petition of "Paritet" CJSC, submitted on behalf of several operators - owners of refrigerator rolling stock.

According to the Petitioner, the telegram of the Russian Ministry of Railways of 21 November 2002 is still in use on the public railway network. Clause 2 of the telegram forbids repair of private refrigerator rolling stock in non-specialized, freight and passenger stock depots. Repairing freight stock has become an important issue. Private operators have to wait longtime for their stock to be accepted for repair by the enterprises of "RZhD" OJSC and "Refservice" OJSC.

The Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation - the federal executive body on transportation - has not been working on abolishing the controversial Clause of the telegram as well as making corrections to the normative documentation on scheduled repair of refrigerator rolling stock.

The FAS Russia's Commission concluded that the Ministry of Transport violated Article 15 of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition" and lack of actions undertaken by the Ministry prevented activities of the owners of refrigerator rolling stock in terms of providing timely maintenance.

FAS Russia will issue the determination to the Ministry of Transport on the basis of the above decision within the statutory period.