OREANDA-NEWS. March 20, 2013. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) found that the Tender Committee of Moscow and the “Directorate for Supporting State Health Care Institutions in the South-West Administrative District of Moscow” State-Owned Institution violated the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”.

The organizations restricted access to participation in an electronic auction for the right to conclude government contracts for supplying dairy products for children through milk-distribution outlets.

Organizing the auction, the ordering parties combined purchasing of dairy products for kids in a single lot, as a result of which only one producer was able to take part in the auction. To bid at the auction, all other companies specializing in production of a particular type of dairy products for children were forced to buy products of other producers, often their competitors.

Thus, actions of the ordering parties – combining all items of dairy products for children in the single lot – resulted in reducing the number of economic entities that potentially could have taken part in the auction, budding for separate products of groups of products.

“The FAS decision makes a precedent because it opens a possibility for producers of dairy products for children to take part in auctions under the conditions of real competition between similar goods of different brands and enables saving considerable budgetary funds”, pointed out the Head of FAS Department for Control over Social Sphere and Trade Timophey Nizhegorodtsev.