OREANDA-NEWS. December 29, 2008. The Federal Antimonopoly Service found that the Federal service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Supervision (Rosselkhoznadzor) violated Article 15 of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition" and issued a determination to eliminate the violations, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

Rosselkhoznadzor violated the law by refusing to issue the phytosanitary certificates to the economic entities, that use railways to transport quarantine goods subject to phytosanitary control and supervision, if they did not provide the car numbers.

Investigating the case, FAS Russia established that Rosselkhoznadzor had set a mandatory requirement to the consignors to specify the number of the car with the quarantine goods in order to receive a phytosanitary certificate. Rosselkhoznadzor explained such a requirement by the need to adjust the proceedings for filling in phytosanitary certificates to the standards of international law (the International Plant Protection Convention and No.12 International Standard for Phytosanitary Measures ("Regulations on Phytosanitary Certificates").

Setting the requirement was related to undue performance by Rosselkhoznadzor of its functions on issuing the phytosanitray certificates. The requirement unreasonably prevented activities of the lumber exporters and could prevent activities of other economic entities that use railway and other transport to move quarantine goods. Furthermore, unlawful requirements of Rosselkhoznadzor increased car detention and cut down economic performance of the consignors and transport workers.

Investigating the case, FAS Russia established that the standards of international law, regulating the procedure for filling in the phytosanitray certificates do not have a mandatory requirement for specifying the number of the vehicles to identify the lot of quarantine goods and only recommend to put this information in the phytosanitray certificates, if such information in known to the consignors.