OREANDA-NEWS. March 22, 2011. The Office of the Federal Antimonopoly Service in the Novosibirsk region (Novosibirsk FAS Russia) found that “Sibir’Energo” OJSC violated Part 1 Article 10 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” and fined the company 200 million Rubles under Article 14.31 of the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Violations, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

“Sibir’Energo” OJSC abused its dominance on the market of electric power by refusing, without any economic or technological reasons, to introduce changes to the contract with “SPAS-Dom” Managing Company” CJSC. Such actions of Sibir’Energo” OJSC infringed the interests of consumers – residents of apartment blocks.

Instead of calculating consumption of electric power in the public spaces (corridors, basements, flights of stairs) of apartment blocks in Novosibirsk using measuring devices or applying the norms for consuming utility services for electric power supply, “Sibir’Energo” OJSC made calculations on the basis of connected capacity and the number of work hours of electric power devices within 24 hours per day.

Elena Tsyshevskaya, Deputy Head of the OFAS Department for Control over Electric Power Industry, commented the decision of Novosibirsk FAS Russia to impose the fine upon “Sibir’Energo” OJSC: “These actions of the energy supplier are totally against the provisions and standards of the antimonopoly law and the law on energy saving and increasing efficiency of energy consumption. Currently FAS Russia and its regional offices have strengthened enforcement of the law on energy saving and increasing efficiency of energy consumption over economic entities. We believe that it is most important to suppress actions of energy supplies that abuse their market dominance so we can prevent infringing the interests of the residents of apartment blocks”.