OREANDA-NEWS. January 21, 2011. The Head of the Office of the Federal Antimonopoly Service in the Voronezh region (Voronezh OFAS Russia), Vladimir Rotmistrov, made a presentation at a weekly briefing at the Governor of the Voronezh region, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

Vladimir Rotmistrov told about violations of the antimonopoly law associated with reforming the system of housing and utility services in Novovoronezh. He said that Voronezh OFAS Russia initiated two cases against Novovoronezh Town Legislature and Novovoronezh Town Authority upon the signs of violating the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”.

Implementing the Concept of reforms of municipal housing-and-utility sector, the local authority formed four limited liability companies with 100% of their authorized capital owned by the municipality. Then the municipal shares in each company were decreased to 20%, and 80% shares were transferred to private companies.

As explained by Vladimir Rotmistrov, the local authority had selected the legal entities to whom it had transferred the shares owned by the town municipality without organizing any tenders; it had ignored the principles of efficiency, fairness, openness and transparency and had not engaged other participants of the market of housing-and-utility services.

The Arbitration Court confirmed the rightness of the position taken by Voronezh OFAS Russia and legitimacy of the determinations issued by the antimonopoly body.

The Governor of the Voronezh region, Alexei Gordeev, ordered to investigate the so-called “reforms” in Novovoronezh and report to him about the corrective actions taken. He emphasized that all officials who had signed the decisions in question must be punished.