OREANDA-NEWS. April 09, 2012. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) initiated a case against “BMW Rusland Trading” Ltd. and “Ekvinet” Trading House” Ltd. upon signs of violating Part 4 Article 11 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”. The companies concluded an agreement about exclusive supplies of elements of corporate identification, furniture and service equipment by “Ekvinet” Trading House” Ltd. to the official dealers and the authorized service centres of BMW in the Russian Federation, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.  

The case was initiated upon a petition of the Association of Distributors and Manufacturers of car service equipment. The rights of the Association members could have been violated through restricting their possibilities to independently supply service equipment to the official dealers and service centres of BMW.

Having investigated the petition, FAS concluded that “BMW Rusland Trading” Ltd. obligated all its dealers and service stations to purchase elements of corporate identification, furniture and service equipment exclusively from “Ekvinet” Trading House” Ltd., which does not produce and is not an official supplier of the products. Earlier there were no restrictions for BMW dealer centres in selecting suppliers and they could purchase products directly from a manufacturer or its official representative, which in some cases is more effective.

FAS also discovered that “BMW” devised a list of approved equipment for applying by official dealers and service stations of BMW across the globe. The list is continuously reviewed and is in open access on the Internet. Therefore, introducing additional restrictions for the service centres in selecting an equipment supplier is not economically or technologically justified.

As a result of the agreement between “BMW Rusland Trading” Ltd. and “Ekvinet” Trading House” Ltd., Russian dealer centres are restricted in their choice of products and are forced to incur additional costs in order to pay for commercial services of “Ekvinet” Trading House” Ltd., which ultimately will be shifted to customers of the dealers and service centres.

All interested persons can inform FAS about possible infringement of their rights due to actions of “BMW Rusland Trading” Ltd. and “Ekvinet” Trading House” Ltd. on (499) 252-11-01 or e-mail: chuklinov@fas.gov.ru, the contact person – Dmitry Chouklinov.

The case is scheduled on 15th May 2012.