OREANDA-NEWS. On June 22, 2009 the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) found that the Federal Agency for Technical Regulation and Metrology (Rostechregulirovanie) violated Part 1 Article 15 of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition", reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

The case was initiated upon a petition of two economic entities - "Rezonans" Research-and-Production Enterprise" Ltd. and "EGO" Research-and-Production Enterprise" Ltd. The "National Research Institute of Metrological Service" Federal State Unitary Enterprise ("VNIIMS" FGUP), the Federal Service for Environmental, Technological and Nuclear Supervision (Rostechnadzor) and the Ministry of Industry and Commerce of the Russian Federation (Minpromtorg Russia) were brought into the proceedings as interested parties.

The Agency violated the law by unlawfully classifying safety devices and appliances (crane overload limiters) as measurement devices and issuing No.10-2008 Technical Assignment of 5th September 2008 for governmental metrological supervision of economic entities, involved in construction and reconstruction of facilities using load-lifting equipment (cranes, hoists), and in manufacturing, repair and distribution of the means of measurement (safety devices) used in load-lifting equipment (Technical Regulations). It resulted in imposing administrative charges upon economic entities without reasonable grounds and prohibiting the use of those devices by the economic entities.

Rostechregulirovanie created a situation when economic entities were forced to undergo additional certification of their products, undertake additional testing, etc. Therefore, approving Technical Assignment could have resulted in increased production costs and imposing administrative charges upon economic entities for breaching the Regulations, which FAS Russia finds unlawful.

Investigating the petitions, FAS Russia established that the procedures for classifying safety devices and appliances as the means of measurement were not specified by the law, so Rostechregulirovanie unlawfully issued the Technical Assignment.

"The problem has affected the interests of a wide range of market participants: device and crane manufacturers as well as organisations operating them. All together there are more than 300,000 cranes with such devices that belong to various owners", said Pavel Subbotin, the Chairman of the FAS Russia's Commission and Deputy Head of FAS Russia. According to Pavel Subbotin, "the actions of Rostechregulirovanie created an additional market entry barrier for device manufacturers, which we removed".

"In the FAS Russia's opinion, for 20 years bureaucrats had survived without those procedures; and they could not justify their actions for classifying technical devices as the means of measurements for the Commission", stated the Deputy Head of FAS Russia.

Having processed the case, FAS Russia issued a determination to the Federal Agency for Technical Regulation and Metrology on eliminating the antimonopoly violations by withdrawing No.10-2008 Technical Assignment of 5th September 2008.