OREANDA-NEWS. April 07, 2011. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) found that eight participants of the market of liquid chlorine: “Chloractiv” CJSC, “Neknorn” Ltd., “RusTrade” Ltd., “Caustic” OJSC (of Volgograd), “Chimprom” OJSC (of Novocheboksarsk), “Chimprom” OJSC (of Volgograd), a group of persons including: “Sibur” Ltd., “Sibur Holding” CJSC, “Sibur-Neftekhim” OJSC, a group of persons including “Chimprom” Production Association” Ltd. and “Chimprom” Trading House” Ltd., violated Clauses 1 and 3 Part 1 Article 11 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” (an agreement on fixing prices and dividing market), reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

At the beginning of 2011, FAS Russia initiated a case against some large producers and sellers of chlorine in Russia. “There are all signs required for qualifying price collusion at the national level between Russian chlorine producers. In the recent years, prices have increased approximately threefold, which is absolutely unreasonable. All signs of a cartel collusion are present”, stated the Head of the Antimonopoly Service Igor Artemyev at a meeting with the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin.

In course of the investigation, FAS Russia established that chlorine producers and sellers entered into an agreement about dividing the chlorine market by the volumes of sales and the composition of buyers. Members of the cartel determined which share of the chlorine market each member shall control, fixed specific categories of consumers to each producer and its dealers, and formed the bodies coordinating cartel activities and the mechanisms of its control.

“Companies’ actions resulted in a considerable increase of chlorine prices. At the same time, chlorine is of special importance as its main consumers are water services companies that use it for water disinfection. Therefore, actions of the cartel members led to raising the tariffs for hot and cold water supply for the population and adversely affected tariff setting in the housing-and-utilities system”, said Stats-Secretary Andrey Tsarikovskiy, Deputy Head of FAS Russia.