OREANDA-NEWS. February 10, 2014. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) found that the Federal Fishery Agency (Rosrybolovstvo) violated Part 3 Article 15 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” in the part of unlawfully assigning the functions of an executive body to economic entities for allocating quotas for catching water biological resources.

On 14th February 2013, the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Kingdom of Morocco signed an Agreement on Cooperation in the field of deep-see -fishery, according to which Morocco allows Russian fishing boats to catch small pelagic fish species (sardine, sardinella, Atlantic mackerel, horse mackerel, and anchovy) in the Atlantic fishing zone of Morocco.

Rosrybolovstvo assigned the functions of a fishery executive body for allocating and defining quotas for harvesting water biological resources in the Atlantic part of the exclusive economic zone of the Kingdom of Morocco to the companies that are members of the National Fishery Association and work near the West Coast of Africa.

In the FAS opinion, such actions of the executive body resulted in restricting competition in unfair allocation of quotas.

FAS issued a determination to the Federal Fishery Agency to eliminate the violation of the antimonopoly law.

“The FAS decision will prevent unlawful allocation of harvesting quotas when Russia concludes similar agreements on hcatching water biological resources”, emphasized Stats-Secretary, Deputy Head of FAS Andrey Tsarikovsky.