OREANDA-NEWS. February 14, 2014. Moscow Arbitration Court confirmed legitimacy of two decisions of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) on the cases on restricting competition by Primorie Regional Office of the Federal Fishery Agency (Rosrybolovstvo) in the course of two auctions for the rights to conclude contracts for the quotas for catching blue crab and horsehair crab in coastal fishing.

In September 2012, Primorie Regional Office of Rosrybolovstvo issued orders, based on which three auctions for selling the right to conclude contracts for the quotas for catching (harvesting) water biological resources - blue crab and horsehair crab and king crab in Primorie sub-zone (to the south of Golden Cape) included requirements not provided for by the law of the Russian Federation. The main requirement for participating in the auctions was to have a contract for harvesting with a research organization subordinate to Rosrybolovstvo, valid until 31st December 2008.

On 1st August 2013, FAS issued three decisions that Primorie Regional Office of Rosrybolovstvo violated Part 1 Article 15 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” and issued determinations to eliminate antimonopoly violations.

“We are satisfied with the Court rulings on the cases. Actions of the Regional Office of Rosrybolovstvo considerably restricted the number of auction participants that would be able to bid for the right to catch crabs, which restricted competition at the auctions”, pointed out Deputy Head of FAS, Andrey Tsarikovskiy.

On 26th February 2014, the Court will examine legitimacy of the FAS decision on the auction for selling the rights for coastal quotas for catching (harvesting) king crab.