Federal Law № 216-FZ of July 29, 2009 "On Introducing Amendments to Article 178 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation"

Article 1

Article 178 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (the Code of Laws of the Russian Federation, 1996, No. 25, p. 2954; 2003, No. 50, p. 4848) shall be in the following statutory wording:

»Article 178. Preventing, Restricting or Eliminating Competition

1. Preventing, restricting or eliminating competition by entering into competition-restricting agreements or engaging in competition-restricting concerted actions, repeatedly abusing dominant position by fixing or maintaining monopolistically high or monopolistically low prices for the goods, unreasonably refusing to enter into a contract or evading a contract, and restricting market entry, if those actions have inflicted heavy damages to citizens, organizations or the state or resulted in gaining income on a large-scale, 

are punishable by a fine from 300,000 to 500,000 Rubles, or in the amount of the salary of a convicted person or other income received during a period of one or two years, or imprisonment for up to three years, with or without depriving of the right to hold certain positions or be involved in certain activities for up to one year.

2. The same actions:

а) exercised by a person, abusing his/her position;

б) associated with liquidating or damaging somebody else's property, or the threat of its liquidation or damaging, in the absence of the elements of extortion;

в) which inflicted especially heavy damages or resulted in gaining income on especially large scale, 

are punishable by imprisonment for up to six years and imposing a fine in the amount of up to one million Rubles, or the salary of a convicted person or other income received during the period for up to five years, or without imposing a fine, with or without depriving of the right to hold certain positions or be involved in certain activities for one to three years.

3. Actions specified in Parts 1 or 2 of this Article, and committed with violence or a threat of violence, 

are punishable by imprisonment for up to seven years, with or without depriving of the right to hold certain positions or be involved in certain activities for one to three years.

Notes. 

1. In this Article, «income gained on a large scale» means income exceeding five million Rubles, and «income gained on especially large scale» means income exceeding twenty five million Rubles. 

2. «Heavy damages» means damages exceeding one million Rubles, and «especially heavy damages» are damages exceeding three million Rubles. 

3. A person who committed a crime, specified in the Article, is relieved from criminal liability if this person assisted exposing and investigating the crime, compensated the inflicted damages or transferred the income obtained as a result of the crime to the federal budget, and if the person's actions do not constitute any other crime. 

4. A person is considered repeatedly abusing dominant position if this person committed more than two actions within three years, for which this person was made administratively liable».

Article 2

This Federal Law comes into force in three months after its official publication. 


D. Medvedev
The President of the Russian Federatio