OREANDA-NEWS. July 18, 2014. Moscow Arbitration Court dismissed a claim of Cheboksary Authority to invalidate FAS decision and determination on a case on violating the antimonopoly law.

On 6th March 2014, FAS found that Cheboksary Authority violated Part 1 Article 15 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”.

Based on the case materials, the Commission concluded that Cheboksary Authority purposefully created unreasonable advantages for “RKTs” OJSC, which could have led to monopolizing the relevant market.

The Commission established that Cheboksary Authority passed 31.10.2012 No. 477 Decree “On Organizing the Work of “Processing Payment Centre” Open Shareholding Company” with recommendations to managing companies and other housing-and-utilities companies in Cheboksary to conclude contracts with “RKTs” OJSC by 01.11.2012 for the services for calculating, accepting and transferring housing-and-utility payments from the population to resource-supplying organizations.

Later, Cheboksary Authority also held several meetings, upon which District Authorities were given instructions that were executed, to support cooperation of managing organizations with “RKTs” OJSC.

The case was opened upon a petition of a managing company in Cheboksary (“Deon” Managing Company” Ltd.) as well as the results of the inspections carried out by Chuvashia OFAS.

Since Cheboksary Authority did not eliminate the violation, OFAS issued a determination to eliminate the violation and to exercise actions aimed to support competition.

Cheboksary Authority disagreed with FAS decision and determination and filed a lawsuit; Moscow Arbitration Court, however, dismissed the claim.

Commenting the Court judgment, the Head of FAS Department for Control over Financial Markets, Olga Sergeeva, emphasized that the antimonopoly bodies undertake methodical efforts to prevent and suppress competition-restricting actions of the authorities at different levels.

“In FAS opinion, actions of the authorities such as actions of Cheboksary Authority are unacceptable because they create a real threat to market relations. I would like to specially emphasize that possible consequences of such action in the form of price increases, impaired quality of goods and services as well as general deterioration of the economy, ultimately lie heavy on ordinary people”, pointed out отметила Olga Sergeeva.

Part 1 Article 15 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” prohibits federal executive bodies, the authorities of the constituent territories of the Russian Federation, local self-government bodies, other bodies and organizations exercising the functions of the above bodies, organizations involved in rendering state and municipal services, as well as state extra-budgetary funds, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation to adopt acts and (or) exercise actions (omissions) that lead or can lead to preventing, restricting, eliminating competition, except cases of adopting acts and (or) exercising such actions (omissions) provided for by the federal laws.

Under Article 176 of the Arbitration Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, preparing a full judgment of Arbitration Court can be postponed for the period not exceeding five days, the date of producing the full decision is the date of when the decision was made.

At the same time, under Article 180 of the Arbitration Procedure Code, the judgment of Arbitration Court of First Instance comes into effect in a month after it was issued, if an appeal is not lodged. If appeal is lodged, the decision comes into force, if not abolished or changed, on the date of Arbitration Appeal Court adoption the ruling.