OREANDA-NEWS. May 08, 2009. The Saratov Office of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) imposed administrative charges upon "Pervaya Strakhovaya Kompania [First Insurance Company]" Ltd. for violating the antimonopoly legislation and fined the company 259 691Rubles, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

As reported earlier, the Saratov OFAS Russia found that "Promsvyaz'bank" OJSC and 12 insurance companies (including "Pervaya Strakhovaya Kompania" Ltd.) violated Clauses 4 and 5 Part 1 Article 11 of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition".

The case was initiated upon notifications on the agreements between financial organisations, submitted to Saratov OFAS Russia for verification of compliance with the antimonopoly legislation.

Some of the Clauses of an additional agrement between "Promsvyaz'bank" OJSC and "Pervaya Srakhovaya Kompania" Ltd. included arrangements that could have resulted in imposing unfavourable conditions upon borrowers as well as economically and technologically unjustified refusals to sign agrements with certain insurance organisations.

Establishing the fact of violating Article 11 of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition" constitutes the grounds for imposing administrative charges upon "Pervaya Strakhovaya Kompania" Ltd. under Article 14.32 of the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Violations: if an economic entity enters in a competition-restrictive agreement it is punishable by imposing an administrative fine upon legal entities - from one hundredth to fifteen hundredths of the proceeds gained by the violator from selling the goods on the market where the violation was committed.

Reference:
Clauses 4 and 5 Part 1 Article 11 of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition" prohibit agreements between economic entities or concerted actions between economic entities on the goods market if such agreements or concerted actions result or can result in:

4) an economically or technologically unjustified refusal to sign agrements with certain sellers or buyers (customers) if such a refusal is not directly provided for in the federal laws, normative legal acts of the President of the Russian Federation, normative legal acts of the Government of the Russian Federation, normative legal acts of the authorised federal executive bodies or judicial acts;

5) imposing unfavourable conditions upon a counteragent or conditions that are not relevant to the subject matter of the agreement (unreasonable requirements on transferring financial funds, other property, including property rights, as well as a consent to sign an agreement only upon introducing certain clauses to the agrement regarding the goods, in which the counteragent is not interested, and other requirements).