OREANDA-NEWS. On June 24, 2009 the Constitution Court of the Russian Federation pronounced its Ruling on verifying some provisions of the Law of the Russian Federation (RSFSR) "On Competition and Restricting Monopolistic Activity on the Goods Markets" and the Federal Law of the Russian Federation "On Protection of Competition", reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

"This is a normal situation when economic entities exercise their legitimate rights for protecting their interests and appeal our decisions to court of law", said Andrey Tsyganov, Deputy Head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service.

"We appreciate it that the courts - the Constitution Court of the Russian Federation, the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation and the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation - give thorough and in-depth consideration to the core of the issues related to antimonopoly regulation", said Andrey Tsyganov commenting the Ruling of the Constitution Court.

Reference:
The Constitution Court of the Russian Federation pronounced its Ruling on the constitutionality of Clauses 2 and 4 Article 12, Articles 22.1 and 23.1 of the Law of the Russian Federation (RSFSR) "On Competition and Restricting Monopolistic Activity on the Goods Markets" and Articles 23, 37 and 52 of the Federal Law of the Russian Federation "On Protection of Competition".

Under the above provisions, the antimonopoly authority can request economic entities to transfer to the federal budget the part of their income that was obtained by violating the antimonopoly legislation.

The Constitution Court ruled that the above provisions do not violate the Constitution of the Russian Federation.

At the same time, the Constitution Court of the Russian Federation emphasised that the antimonopoly authority must ascertain guilt of an entrepreneur as the condition for recovering unlawfully obtained income to the federal budget.

The Constitution Court also ruled the antimonopoly authority must determine the income obtained by each participant of a group of persons.

Finally, the Constitution Court of the Russian Federation emphasised the absence of limitation period for imposing charges for violating the antimonopoly legislation and ruled that the guidance should be the general limitation period determined by the civil law.