OREANDA-NEWS. August 09, 2013. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) found that Primorie District Office of the Federal Fishery Agency (Rosrybolovstvo) violated Part 1 Article 15 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” (competition-restricting actions of executive bodies) organizing three auctions in December 2012 for the right to conclude contracts allocating quotas for catching (producing) water biological resources. FAS issued a determination to eliminate the antimonopoly violations.

In September 2012, Primorie District Office of the Federal Fishery Agency issued orders according to which three auctions for selling the right to conclude contracts on allocating quotas for catching water biological resources (horsehair crab, blue crab and king crab) in Primorie sub-zone (to the south of Golden Cape) had requirements not provided for by the law of the Russian Federation.

The regional Office of the Federal Fishery Agency set the main criterion for taking part in the auctions as availability of a catching contract signed with a research organization and valid directly before 31st December 2008.

Such actions by the auction organizer reduced the number of economic entities that could compete for the right to catch crab.

Drafting the orders that restricted competition at the auctions, Primorie District Office of the Federal Fishery Agency was mistakenly guided by Part 4 Article 57 of the Fishery Law, which gives the right to catch water biological resources to the persons involved in fishery before 31st December 2008. It implies that contacts on allocating quotas to the persons catching water biological resources on the basis of the agreements with research organizations must be concluded upon the outcomes of auctions.

“Hopefully, after FAS decision the bodies of the Federal Fishery Agency will no more apply Part 4 Article 57 of the Fishery Law to limit the number of bidders at the auctions for catching water biological resources”, pointed out Deputy Head of FAS Alexander Kinev.

Investigating the case, the FAS Commission also decided to open separate proceedings against Primorie District Office of the Federal Fishery Agency, “Aquaresource-DV” Ltd. and “Taifun” Ltd. upon signs of violating Article16 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” (prohibiting anticompetitive agreements between the authorities and economic entities).