OREANDA-NEWS. July 26, 2012. The 9th Arbitration Appeal Court supported FAS position and confirmed that “MRSK Volga” OJSC had violated the antimonopoly law, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.     

On 17th July 2012, the 9th Arbitration Appeal Court upheld the judgment of Moscow Arbitration Court to pronounce legitimacy of the decision of the Antimonopoly Service regarding “MRSK Volga” OJSC.

In October 2011, the Federal Antimonopoly Service found that “MRSK Volga” OJSC violated Clause 3 Part 1 Article 10 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”. The company was forcing “RUSENEGOSBYT” Ltd. to accept additional services of transmitting electric power industry over initially requested volume of services. “MRSK Volga” OJSC refused to sign additional agreements on excluding relevant delivery points from the contracts, which infringed the right of “RUSENEGOSBYT” Ltd. to reduce the volume of services for transmitting electric power industry and, accordingly, their overall costs.

According to Clauses 18 and 24 of the Rules for Non-Discriminatory Access to the services for transmitting electric power industry and providing such services, approved by No.861 Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of 27th December 2004, a network organization cannot impose additional transmission services upon consumers over the services requested by consumers, and can only request (in the absence of technical possibility) reducing contract volumes.

Having considered all case materials presented by “RUSENEGOSBYT” Ltd., FAS made a decision not in favour of “MRSK Volga” OJSC. “MRSK Volga” OJSC disagreed with FAS decision and filed a lawsuit challenging the decision. However, the Courts dismissed the claims.

“It is very important for us that Courts support our decisions. In two incidents Courts upheld our decisions. And we are convinced that these actions once again serve as a lesson for other market participants. Unfortunately, such violations as imposing additional volumes of services for transmitting electric power industry are very frequent in our practice. We undertake robust efforts so the electric power market maintains healthy competition and observe the existing legislation. And we hope that in the future Courts will continue to actively support us in this area”, commented the Head of FAS Department for Control over Electric Power industry, Vitaly Korolyov.