OREANDA-NEWS. April 28, 2010. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) found that the Ministry of Regional Development of the Russian Federation (Minregion Russia) 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 petitions from "Grand" Centre" Ltd. and "Association of Developers of Construction Software" Non-Commercial Organization, who develop estimate software systems.

The FAS Russia's Commission discovered that Mingerion Russia issued a letter "Recommendations for verifying reliability of the budgeted parts of construction documentation". The letter of Mingerion Russia was addressed to 84 organizations, responsible for government expert assessment in constituent territories of the Russian Federation, and included the following recommendation: "…to verify reliability of the budgeted parts of construction documentation, the "GOSSTROISMETA-EXPERT" specialized estimate software system should be the core system for all organizations involved in government expert assessment in constituent territories of the Russian Federation…". The letter did not indicate possibility to use any alternative software system, chosen as the core system without competitive selection.

The FAS Russia's Commission established that such recommendations of Minregion Russia could lead to restricting or eliminating competition on the relevant goods market.

In the FAS Russia's opinion, Minregion Russia allowed omissions: it did not exercise due control over the work of "FTsTsS" Federal State Enterprise, subordinate to the Ministry, on distributing registration cards, and certificates for including software products in the list of programs eligible for advancing the federal budgeted standard base for pricing in construction, and keeping the register of estimate software products used for advancing federal and regional budgeted standard bases; it also did not control disseminating of unreliable information by "FTsTsS" Federal State Enterprise regarding the status of the registration cards, certificates and the register. Such actions could lead to preventing or eliminating competition on the market of development and implementation of estimate programs.

Pavel Subbotin, the Chairman of the Commission, pointed out that FAS Russia would have to continue its analysis of activities of Minregion Russia and subordinate to it "FTsTsS" Federal State Enterprise on issuing procedural guidelines for pricing in construction, because the Commission had several questions, which would require additional investigation.