OREANDA-NEWS. September 11, 2013. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) found that Kemerovo Regional Authority, “Russian Railways” OJSC and 16 rolling stock operators violated the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” (Clauses 3 and 4 Article 16).

FAS Commission established that in October 2011 Kemerovo Regional Authority, “Russian Railways” OJSC and rolling stock operators, under an excuse of combating congestion on rail tracks preventing coal shipments, gathered together at meetings, where made decisions to reduce the number of operators providing cars to transport coal from Kuzbass. As a result of the agreement, the number of participants of the market of operator services in the Kemerovo region should have been cut down from с 230 to 16.

The market was divided according to a geographic principle, categories of buyers and volume of sales, and conditions were created for the cartel members restricting market entry for other operators.

In the course of the investigation, respondents stated that the agreements had been a desperate measure undertaken to execute the instructions of the President of the Russian Federation when the situation with carrying coal form Kuzbass was quite difficult.

FAS Commission established that the instructions issued by the President of the Russian Federation did not include specific measures that must be taken to resolve the situation, so participants to the agreement simply attempted to use it to justify their unlawful actions.

“Implementing the anticompetitive agreement considerably restricted competition on the market of rail track operator services, infringed the rights of bona fide market participants and, unfortunately, has not resolved the issues with carrying coal from the Kemerovo region”, pointed out Deputy Head of FAS Alexander Kinev.

Reference:

Rolling stock operators – owners of railway car fleet that render services for providing various types of car to consignors for loading to further transport the goods by the carrier (“Russian Railways” OJSC).

16 rolling stock operators: “Federal Freight Company” OJSC, “Independent Transport Company” Ltd., “First Freight Company” OJSC, “NefteTransservice” CJSC, “Novotrans” TK” CJSC, “SibugleMetTrans” Ltd., “TG-Trans” Ltd., “SUEK” OJSC, ОАО "Новая Перевозочная Компания", “Mechel-Trans” Ltd., “TransGrroup AC” Ltd., “RBD-Service” Ltd., “Evrosib SPb –Transportnie Sistemy” CJSC, “Ferrotrans” Ltd., and “Transit-Plus” Ltd.