OREANDA-NEWS. April 27, 2012. FAS Commission made a decision on a case initiated against the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation upon signs of violating Part 1 Article 15 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

The case was initiated upon a petition of the “Savings Bank of Russia” OJSC, where the credit organization stated that the Ministry of Defence had created unreasonable advantages for banking activities of “VTB Bank” OJSC.

The materials presented by the “Savings Bank of Russia” OJSC showed that in August 2011 some companies in the military – industrial complex sent letters to their subsidiaries and depending organizations with a requirement to urgently start banking servicing in “VTB Bank” OJSC on the basis of instructions from the Ministry of Defence, and close all accounts, loan facilities and payroll programmes, opened in other credit organizations.

In course of the investigation, FAS did not confirm the fact of the Ministry of Defence sending letters with such instructions to military-and-defence companies in 2011.

At the same time, FAS Commission established that in December 2010 the Ministry of Defence sent letters to some companies in relations to choosing credit organizations by military-and-defence companies for the purposes of obtaining loans.

Having analyzed the content of the letters, the FAS Commission concluded that sending letters by the Ministry of Defence could have restricted competition on the market of banking services.

Thus, the FAS Commission found that the Ministry of Defence violated Part 1 Article 15 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” and issued a determination to eliminate the antimonopoly violations and exercise actions aimed towards protecting competition.

Under the determination, the Ministry of Defence must withdraw the letters and publish explanations on its web-site regarding possibilities of military-and-defence companies to independently select credit organizations for the purposes of banking servicing.

Reference:

Part 1 Article 15 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” prohibits the federal executive bodies to pass acts and (or) exercise actions (omissions) that lead or can lead to preventing, restricting, eliminating competition, except the cases for passing acts and (or) exercising such actions (omissions) provided for by the federal laws.