OREANDA-NEWS. April 09, 2012. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) closed an antimonopoly case against RENAULT TRUCKS, SAS (France) and its 36 service stations in the Russian Federation, because the French truck manufacturer voluntarily eliminated the antimonopoly violation, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.  

The case was initiated upon a petition of “Truck Centre Kazan” Ltd. received by FAS.

The FAS Commission established that in February 2010 RENAULT TRUCKS, SAS and “AMINA” Ltd. concluded a service station contract, according to which the company was obligated not to be involved in any other competitive activities within the contact period and a year after the contract were to be terminated. Under the contract the company could not service and repair any trucks of competitors in the same market segment without a written consent from RENAULT TRUCKS, SAS.

Later the FAS Commission found that in 2009 - 2011 RENAULT TRUCKS, SAS concluded several other service station contracts, the wording of which was similar to the contract concluded with “AMINA” Ltd.

Since the beginning of the investigation, RENAULT TRUCKS, SAS agreed to cooperate with the antimonopoly authority and submitted all documents and information, requested as part of the investigation, in good faith and in full; company representatives gave the required explanations at the meetings of FAS Commission.

Upon the investigation, RENAULT TRUCKS, SAS admitted that certain provisions of service station contracts can restrict competition, and eliminated the violation by renegotiating all existing service station contracts. Also RENAULT TRUCKS, SAS upon its own initiative reviewed all dealer contracts in the Russian Federation, and excluded controversial provisions from them.

Of all service stations brought in the case as respondents only “Avtoforum – Bogorodsk” Ltd. followed an example of RENAULT TRUCKS, SAS and admitted committing the violation.

The FAS Commission did not find any violations of the antimonopoly law in actions of “VOSTOK-3” Ltd., “M-TRUCKS” Ltd., “PROMTRANS” Ltd., “TekhnoViza” Ltd., “ParnasAvtoComplex” Ltd. and “Bovid Truck” Ltd. because the companies had submitted evidence that they had not observed the contract conditions that were the subject matter on the case.

The FAS Commission found that other service stations of RENAULT TRUCKS, SAS, violated Part 2 Article 11 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”.

“In course of consultations with the European Commission we discovered that European antimonopoly bodies suppress such practices of support service on the car market; therefore, FAS decision is fully in line with the international standards. We expect that the precedent of RENAULT TRUCKS, SAS eliminating anticompetitive provisions in contracts with dealers and service stations will be a good example for other participants of the car market. Otherwise FAS will have to take necessary measures of antimonopoly enforcement up to turnover fines”, commented the Head of FAS Department for Control over Industry and Defence Complex, Maksim Ovchinnikov.

Reference:

Part 2 Article 11 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” (revised of 18th July 2011, with amendments of 21st November 2011) prohibits other agreements between economic entities or other concerted actions of economic entities, if such agreements or concerted actions lead or can lead to restricting competition. Currently such prohibitions are set by Part 4 Article 11 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”.