OREANDA-NEWS. August 01, 2012. Moscow Arbitration Court upheld the decision of the Antimonopoly Service regarding “Gazprom” OJSC on a case about unreasonable refusal to provide access to “Gazprom” gas-transportation system, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

In January 2012, the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) found that “Gazprom” OJSC, which has the dominant position on the federal market of gas transportation services, violated the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” (Part 1 Article 10 of the Law).

“Gazprom” OJSC unreasonably refused to provide “Real-Gaz” Ltd. access to its gas-transportation system. The gas monopolist did not grant access to the gas-transportation system and refused to conclude a gas transportation contract.

“Gazprom” OJSC practically pushed “Real-Gaz” Ltd. out from the gas market, forcing a customer to buy gas from a “Gazprom” subsidiary.

“Gazprom” OJSC is a monopolist in gas and supply transportation and is also the largest production organization in the Russian Federation. It generates the conflict of interests and in some incidents it leads to refusing to provide access for independent organizations to the gas-transportation system.

“We’ve just learned that “Forbes” (the USA) named Russian “Gazprom” as the most profitable company in the global economy in 2011. According to “Forbes”, last year “Gazprom” profit reached USD 44.46 billion. The company, however, did not obtain all this money legally. It is confirmed by the antimonopoly case against “Gazprom” OJSC, when the gas monopolist pushed an independent supplier from the market, and forced the end customer to buy gas only from its network. We suppressed the violation and the Arbitration Court supported us in this issue”, commented Deputy Head of FAS, Pavel Subbotin.

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In the past few years FAS and its regional bodies have considered dozens of similar cases on the gas market. Due to increased violations – creating discriminatory conditions and preventing entry to the gas market, FAS devised a draft order on increasing access of independent producers to “Gazprom” gas transportation system. Upon approvals by the interested parties, the draft order was introduced to the Government of the Russian Federation. So far the decision on the issue has not been made, so the current Rules for non-discriminatory access to the gas-transportation systems and the general norms of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” are applied.