OREANDA-NEWS. September 20, 2011. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) finalised antimonopoly cases against “Rosatom” State Corporation and “V/O Izotop” OJSC. Following the investigation, the FAS Commission closed the proceedings against the State Corporation but found that “V/O Izotop” OJSC violated Clauses 1 and 3 Part 1 Article 10 Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

The company fixed monopolistically high price for isotope products and was imposing disadvantageous conditions upon its counteragents and conditions irrelevant to the contract subject.

The FAS Commission established that in 2010 “V/O Izotop” OJSC, that had dominant position on the relevant market, was selling isotope products with an average 50% mark-up over the purchasing price for such products. “V/O Izotop” OJSC was also forcing consumers to transport isotope products at the buyers’ expense from manufacturers to their warehouse, the distance between them reaching up to 2000 km, which resulted in a considerable extension of delivery terms and the costs of product transportation.

The dominant position of “V/O Izotop” OJSC was established by No.646 Order of “Rosatom” State Corporation of 17th September 2009 that required subordinate organisations to sell all isotope products through “V/O Izotop” OJSC.

In course of the investigation, “Rosatom” State Corporation undertook actions aimed at supporting competition by withdrawing its Order, and “V/O Izotop” OJSC admitted the fact of violation.

“We will closely follow developments of the situation on the market of isotope products to prevent abusing market dominance by any market participants. If producers will refuse to directly supply isotope products to consumers without any technological and economic justification, FAS will conduct investigations and apply sanctions to these entities”, commented the Head of FAS Department for Control over Industry and Defence, Maxim Ovchinnikov.

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Isotope product are widely used in various sectors of industry and agriculture, automated engineering process systems, for the purposes of non-destructive inspection of welding joints, radiation control and dosimetry monitoring, etc.