OREANDA-NEWS. On May 12, 2009 the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) initiated a case against "OTP Bank" OJSC and 241 (two hundred forty one) commercial organizations for the elements of violating Clauses 4 and 8 Part 1 Article 11 of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition" (prohibiting competition - restrictive activities), reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

The case was initiated upon FAS Russia received notifications from "OTP Bank" OJSC under Part 9 Article 35 of the Law on concluding co-operation agreements with commercials organizations.

FAS Russia suspects that "OTP Bank" OJSC and commercial organizations violated the law by entering into co-operation agreements according to which joint advertising and promoting campaigns and actions would be possible only if commercial organizations granted "OTP Bank" OJSC exclusive rights for joint credit programmes.

The case will be heard on 18th June 2009.

Reference:
Article 11 of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition" prohibits agreements between economic entities if such agreements have resulted or can result in:

- economically and technologically unjustified refusal to conclude the contracts with certain sellers or buyers (customers), if such a refusal is not provided for by the federal laws, the normative legal acts of the President of the Russian Federation, the normative legal acts of the Government of the Russian Federation, the normative legal acts of the authorized federal executive bodies or judicial acts;

- preventing entry/ exit of other economic entities to/ from the goods market.