OREANDA-NEWS. February 08, 2012. At the end of September 2011, upon an initiative of the Federal Antimonopoly Service, the Supervisory Council of the “Market Council” Non-Commercial Partnership introduced changes to the Regulations on the procedures for obtaining a status of a participant of wholesale market and keeping the register of participants of wholesale market, that provided for exclusion of discriminatory requirements for energy sale organizations, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

In particular, the Regulations on the procedures for obtaining a status of a participant of wholesale market obligated to submit to a commercial operator originals or notary certified copies of the contracts regulating relations of organizations with the persons in the interests of which they intend to buy electric power on the wholesale market only for energy sale organizations. At the same time other organizations could submit copies certified in any other acceptable manner.

The above requirement is contrary to the current legislation, in particular, the Rules for non-discriminatory access to the services of the trading system administrator of the wholesale market and rendering these services.

Having identified this discriminatory provision in the Regulations, in November 2011 FAS notified the “Market Council” Non-Commercial Partnership that it should make relevant changes to the Regulations in order to remove the Clauses that are discriminatory with regard to energy sale organizations.

As a result, on 26th December 2011, the Supervisory Council of the “Market Council” Non-Commercial Partnership adopted a new version of the regulations that excludes the above discriminatory requirements for energy sale organizations.

FAS Russia on a regular basis verifies whether Regulations on the market and actions of the infrastructure if the wholesale market of electric power and capacity comply with the antimonopoly law.

For instance, in March 2009 FAS Russia found that the “Market Council” Non-Commercial Partnership and “ATS” OJSC violated Part 1 Article 10 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”. The Antimonopoly Service also exposed violations of Article 11 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” with regard to the “Market Council” Non-Commercial Partnership. This organization fixed a high membership fee at five million Rubles that prevents participation of energy sale organizations (providers of last resort) in competitive bidding on the wholesale market as well as access to the services provided by “ATS” OJSC.

Then the Courts of all instances supported FAS position, and the membership fee was reduced to one million Rubles.

The Courts found that the “Market Council” Non-Commercial Partnership set unreasonable requirements to its members to pay the 5-million Rubles membership fee.