OREANDA-NEWS. November 26, 2009. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) discovered the signs of unreasonable prevention of economic activities of market participants by the Russian Ministry of Economic Development and the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phyto-Sanitary Control (Rosselkhoznadzor) (Clause 2 Part 1 Article 15 of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition"), reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

The case was initiated upon petitions from "Roubezh" GPK" Ltd. and "ProdImport" Ltd.

In 2006-2009 the petitioners repeatedly applied to the Ministry of Economic Development in order to reregister the licenses for meat import that had been issued to the companies in accordance with the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of 5th December 2005 "On the Import of Beef, Pork and Poultry in 2006-2009".

However, the Ministry of Economic Development refused to reregister the licenses without consulting the supplying states (unions of states). At the same time, in accordance with the Decree "On Additional Measures for regulating the Import of Beef, Pork and Poultry in 2006-2009", it is the obligation of the Ministry of Economic Development to organize such consultation.

The Ministry of Economic Development reported to FAS Russia that it had not received the relevant notifications from Rosselkhoznadzor, which according to the Decrees is obligated to inform the Ministry if it introduces a complete or a partial ban on import of meat from a supplying state (a union of states).

FAS Russia suspects that Rosselkhoznadzor violated Clause 2 Part 1 Article 15 of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition" by not informing the Ministry of Economic Development about introducing full or partial bans for meat import on the grounds of an unfavourable epizootic situation. Also, the Ministry of Economic Development did not held consultations with the supplying states (unions of states) with the goal to determine possibilities of supplying the quoted amount of meat products from other supplying states (unions of states) or reregistering the quotas to other states, following which the decision should be made about reregistering licenses. Such lack of actions of the Ministry also was contrary to the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition".