OREANDA-NEWS. February 20, 2014. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) found that the Federal Fishery Agency (Rosrybolovstvo) and its Primorie Regional Office violated Article 16 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” by concluding an anticompetitive agreement with participants of the auctions for selling the right to conclude contracts for the quotas for catching (harvesting) water biological resources - blue crab, horsehair crab and king crab in Primorie sub-zone (to the south of Golden Cape) in 2012.

The FAS Commission found that “Aquaresource-DV” Ltd., “Taifun” Ltd. and “Kometa” Ltd. violated Clauses 2, 3 Part 1 and Clause 3 Part 4 Article 11 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” by concluding an anticompetitive agreement, which resulted in maintaining prices at the auctions, preventing entry of other economic entities to the market and could have resulted in dividing the market.

“The case is an important stage of an entire package of measures undertaken by the Federal Antimonopoly Service to restore competition in harvesting water biological resources in the Russian Federation. To a considerable extent this decision became possible due to efficient cooperation between FAS Russia, the Investigation Committee of the Russian Federation and the Federal State Security Service”, said the Head of FAS Anti-Cartel Department, Andrey Tenischev.

The materials of the antimonopoly case shall be forwarded to the investigation Department of the Investigation Committee of the Russian Federation in Primorie region to initiate a criminal case upon corpus delicti specified in Article 178 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.