OREANDA-NEWS. April 09, 2012. The 9th Arbitration Appeal Court upheld the judgment of Moscow Arbitration Court and dismissed the appeal of “Spetstekhnika – Grouppa GAZ” Ltd. (“SGG” Ltd.) on invalidating FAS decision and determination, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.  

On 20th April 2011FAS found that “SGG” Ltd. violated Part 3 Article 11 of No.164-FZ Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” of 17th July 2009. The company coordinated actions of its dealers at tenders, which could have resulted in maintaining prices and economically unjustified refusals to conclude contracts with certain buyers.

In particular, “SGG” Ltd. sent letters to its dealers threatening them to apply economic sanctions and prohibiting to take part in certain tenders for supplying equipment for the state needs or sell such equipment to the tender winners, who for some reasons did not satisfy “SGG” Ltd.

Therefore, the Courts of two instances confirmed legitimacy of FAS decision and determination regarding “SGG” Ltd. and stated that coordinating economic activities of dealers at tenders is anticompetitive and is prohibited by the law.

“FAS Cartel Department received information that other car manufacturers also exercise such unlawful coordination”, said the Head of FAS Cartel Department Alexander Kinyov. “Currently we are carrying out a number of inspections in order to expose and suppress such violations of the antimonopoly law”.