OREANDA-NEWS. October 28, 2011. The Office of the Federal Antimonopoly Service in the Kursk Region (Kursk OFAS Russia) found that “Raifassenbank” CJSC and “Raifassen Life” Insurance Company” Ltd. that violated Clauses 1, 5 and 8 Part 1 Article 11 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

The case was initiated upon the findings of a scheduled inspection of “Raifassenbank” CJSC carried out by Kursk OFAS Russia in February 2011. The Commission of the antimonopoly body established that granting consumer loans, the bank and the insurance company were imposing an additional service – life and disability insurance, which could only be bought with a single insurance company - “Raifassen Life” Ltd. for the whole loan period. Moreover, the insurance payment and the bank fee for registering the insurance policy (the sum three times exceeding the costs of insurance) were automatically included in the loan sum. At the same time, the bank did not take these sums into account when calculating the full costs of loans. The bank and the insurance company effectively agreed upon the insurance rates.

Having investigated the case, FAS issued determinations to the bank and the insurance company to stop antimonopoly violations and impose orders to transfer the income obtained through antimonopoly violations to the federal budget -1/4 million Rubles (over 187 million Rubles “Raifassenbank” CJSC and over 62 million Rubles “Raifassen Life” Insurance Company” Ltd.).

“Today the decision and determination is at the stage of preparation. It is not improbable, that they’ll be challenged at court. Our job is to prove their legitimacy and reasonableness. The income that financial organizations must transfer to the federal budgeteffectively is the money that the bank and the insurance company got from citizens by violating the antimonopoly law. Any restriction of competition ultimately hits ordinary consumers in the wallet. Unfortunately, even tough financial sanctions against cartels in the antimonopoly law do not stop banks and insurance companies from violating the law”, commented the Head of Kursk OFAS Russia, Yuri Komov.

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Article 11 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” prohibits agreements between economic entities or concerted actions of economic entities on the market, if such agreements or concerted actions lead or can lead, in particular, to fixing or maintaining prices (tariffs), discounts, mark-ups, surcharges; imposing disadvantageous contract conditions upon counteragents or irrelevant to the contract subject (unreasonable requirements to transfer financial funds, other property, including property rights, as well as agreements to conclude a contract subject to introducing provisions regarding the goods, in which counteragents are not interested, and other requirements); preventing market entry / exit of other economic entities.