OREANDA-NEWS. May 17, 2013. Moscow Arbitration Court upheld the decision of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) that “Tver Energy-Supplying Company” OJSC and the Regional Energy Commission of the Tver region violated the antimonopoly law. As a result of the violation, in 2010 – 2011prices for electric power increased for consumers in the Tver region.

On 14 September 2012 FAS made a decision on the case against “Tver Energy-Supplying Company” OJSC and the Regional Energy Commission of the Tver region that in 2010 and 2011 had been submitting understated estimates on the average number of hours of capacity use. Based on these data, the “Administrator of the Trading System of the Wholesale Power Market” determined the average prices of electric power for consumers in the Tver region, calculated under one-part rate.

Reducing the final average number of the hours of capacity use resulted in significant growth of average-weighted non-regulated prices for electric power (capacity) for end consumers in the Tver region that are calculated under one-part rate.

FAS found that “Tver Energy-Supplying Company” OJSC and the Regional Energy Commission of the Tver region violated Article 16 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” since the agreement between the companies led to unreasonable increase of prices for electric power. FAS also found that “Tver Energy-Supplying Company” OJSC violated Part 1 Article 10 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” (abusing dominance) by manipulating prices on thr retail market of electric power (capacity).

In January 2013, FAS fined “Tver Energy-Supplying Company” OJSC 107,170,592 Rubles.

“The Court supported FAS conclusions that the company violated the antimonopoly law. Price manipulation is socially very dangerous as a violation affecting a considerable part of customers of the violator. Due to specificity of industry regulation of the electric power sector, this category of cases is always difficult to prove. However, we have already developed practice on similar cases, and we successfully defend our decisions ay Courts”, stated the Head of FAS Department for Control over Electric Power Industry, Vitaly Korolyov.