OREANDA-NEWS. June 03, 2013. The 20th Arbitration Appeal Court (Tula) confirmed legitimacy of the decision made by the Office of the Federal Antimonopoly Service in the Smolensk Region (Smolensk OFAS Russia) to impose an administrative fine upon “Rostelecom” OJSC over 7.2 million Rubles for abusing market dominance (in breach of Article 10 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”).

On 23rd December 2010, the Commission of Smolensk OFAS Russia found that “Rostelecom” OJSC violated the antimonopoly law by decreasing the free “09” directory assistance service for issuing references about the telephone numbers of subscribers to the local telephone network in the Smolensk region and forcing subscribers to use the “009” fee-based directory assistance service, and stopping publication of telephone directories with information about telephone numbers of local network subscribers in spite of technical and economic possibilities.

Having investigated the case, OFAS fined “Rostelecom” OJSC over 7.2 million Rubles.

The company disagreed with the decision of the antimonopoly body and filed a lawsuit, but the 20th Arbitration Appeal Court dismissed the claim.

“At the beginning 2010 there was a surge of complaints from the population to all possible bodies when “CentreTelecom” OJSC (later reorganized by merging with “Rostelecom” OJSC) introduced a new system of issuing references about subscriber numbers through “09” directory assistance service in the Smolensk region: when an enquiry did not specify “full” subscriber data, the requests were redirected to the “009” fee-based directory assistance service. The company was fined for imposing such services. “Rostelecom” OJSC filed lawsuits, but all Courts confirmed the rightness of the decision made by the antimonopoly body”, commented Deputy Head of Smolensk OFAS Russia, Andrey Romanov.