OREANDA-NEWS. August 17, 2009. The Saratov Office of the Federal Antimonopoly service (OFAS Russia) found that the Administration of the Saratov Municipal District, Saratov region, violated Part 1 Article 15 of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition" (prohibiting competition-restricting acts and actions of the authorities), reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

In May 2009, the Head of the Administration of the Saratov Municipal District, Saratov region, gave a plot of land (0.2132 ha) to "Russian Railways [Rossiiskie Zheleznie Dorogi"] OJSC without an auction for building a two-apartment residential house. The Administration singed a lease contract with "Russian Railways" OJSC for the land plot for 11 months.

According to the Land Code of the Russian Federation, plots of land in state or municipal property must be given to a legal entity for residential housing construction (regardless of the number of floors, area and other project characteristics) only through competitive bidding in the form of an open auction.

The Saratov OFAS Russia issued a determination to the Saratov Municipal District, Saratov region, requesting to abolish the actions that were contract to the antimonopoly legislation and stop other violations of the antimonopoly legislation, namely:

- abolish the decree of the Head of the Administration of the Saratov Municipal District, Saratov region, "On giving a lad plot for lease to "Russian Railways" OJSC;

- terminate the lease contract for a plot of land between the Administration of the Saratov Municipal District, Saratov region, and "Russian Railways" OJSC.

"Surprisingly, such violations still happen. From 2005 we regularly suppress violations related to allocating of plots of land but regional and municipal authorities persistently give plots of land without auctions. And they do this in spite of prosecution offices constantly initiating criminal proceedings against the officials who provide plots of land in violation of the antimonopoly legislation", said Vladimir Yefimov, the Head of the FAS Russia's Department for Housing and Utilities, Construction and Natural Resources.

Reference:
In accordance with the instructions of the Government of the Russian Federation, from 2005 FAS Russia monitors how executive bodies of the constituent territories of the Russian Federation and local self-government bodies allocate plots of land in state or municipal property for residential housing construction, development for the purposes of residential housing construction and individual residential housing construction.

Monitoring showed that in the Q1 2009 the authorities allocated 16 001 plots of land. FAS Russia discovered 22 violations of the antimonopoly legislation in Kabardino-Balkaria Republic, the Krasnodar region, the Komi Republic the Lipetsk, Sakhalin, Kaluga, Novosibirsk, Omsk, and Yaroslavl regions. Materials for 885 cases of giving plots of land with violation of the law were forwarded to the prosecutor's offices.