OREANDA-NEWS. July 18, 2012. FAS Russia terminated a case against the Government of the Republic of Tatarstan due to voluntary elimination of violations of the antimonopoly law, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

The Government of the Republic of Tatarstan passed orders requesting local self-government bodies to prohibit suspended communications cables. The orders also fixed the deadline for completing the works for transferring suspended communications lines in underground facilities.

Based on the position taken by Arbitration Courts and normative legal acts, FAS reasonably believes that the orders of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Tatarstan are binding. FAS also takes into consideration that to execute the orders of the Cabinet of Ministers, Municipal Authorities passed relevant acts and controlled their execution, obligating providers to dismantle telecommunications cables that were not located in underground facilities.

Suspended communications cables are mostly used by providers of the services of cable television and Internet access. Providers operating in the Republic of Tatarstan stated that removing communications cables to underground facilities would result in making communications services for consumers considerably more expensive (at least by 30%) and some providers may even exit the market.

FAS believes that such acts result in creating preferential conditions for economic entities, in particular, providers that have own linear-cable structures, and lead (can lead) to restricting competition on communications services markets.

In course of the investigation, on 10th July 2012 the Government of the Republic of Tatarstan eliminated the violations of the antimonopoly law by passing a Decree, abolishing the orders. Representatives of the Government of the Republic of Tatarstan will also inform local self-government bodies of Republic of Tatarstan about the new Decree, which shall constitute the grounds for adjusting the acts, passed to execute the abolished orders, in compliance with the existing regulations of the Republic.

FAS welcomes the decision of the Government of the Republic of Tatarstan to make amendments to normative legal acts of the Republic that facilitate competition on the communications services markets.

FAS would like to emphasize that in the future it will carefully monitor whether the authorities of the constituent territories of the Russian Federation and local self-government bodies adopt such acts, and whether their officials exercise actions that can create additional barriers for operating on the communications services markets and hamper competition.