OREANDA-NEWS. September 11, 2013. The Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation terminated the case on invalidating the Guidelines for scheduled and unscheduled inspections by the Federal Antimonopoly Service and its regional offices to control compliance with the antimonopoly law” (the Guidelines).

In February - May 2013, FAS carried out an unscheduled inspection of “Argus-Spektr” CJSC. The grounds for inspecting were the materials received form the office of the Federal Antimonopoly Service in the Pskov region. As a result of the inspection, FAS exposed signs of violations of Articles 11 and 16 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” by the company, and currently is considering initiating an antimonopoly case.

After the FAS inspection, “Argus-Spektr” CJSC filed a claim to the Supreme Arbitration Court to invalidate the Guidelines, believing that the Guidelines established the right of FAS and its regional offices to carry out unscheduled inspections of economic entities before initiating cases on violating the antimonopoly law.

Also, in the course of the inspection “Argus-Spektr” CJSC refused to fulfill reasonable requests of the antimonopoly authority to submit information. It constituted the grounds for holding the company administratively liable under Article 19.8 of the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Violations.

On 2nd September 2013, the Arbitration Court of St Petersburg and the Leningrad region pronounced legitimacy of FAS determination to hold “Argus-Spektr” CJSC administratively liable.