Courts of three instances confirmed that actions of “Russian Railways” OJSC were unlawful

On 29th January 2013, the Cassation Court upheld the ruling of the 11th Arbitration Appeal Court regarding “Russian Railways” OJSC.

In 2011, the Office of the Federal Antimonopoly Service in the Samara Region (Samara OFAS Russia) received a petition of “Srednevolzhskaya Logistics Company” OJSC (“SLK” OJSC), according to which “Russian Railways” OJSC had not allowed “SLK” OJSC to sent proposals to Priovolzhie Regional Office of the Federal Railway Agency to open Kinel railway station for loading – unloading operations and had offered to use Bezymyanka station for these purposes or to build a dead end track and open a customs control zone.

The refusal of “Russian Railways” OJSC made it impossible to use the container site of “SLK” OJSC, because of which the company had to refuse accepting cargo or forward then to Bezymyanka station and use the services of “Russian Railways” OJSC for container loading – unloading.

Having investigated the case, in February 2012 Samara OFAS Russia found that “Russian Railways” OJSC abused its dominance on the market of services for using the railway infrastructure and issued a determination to eliminate the violation – to send a proposal to the Federal Railway Agency to open Kinel station under Clauses 8n and10n of No.4 Tariff Regulations.

According to Deputy Head of Samara OFAS Russia, Yulia Klinkova, the federal law does not allow the owner of non-public railway tracks to independently propose to the Federal Railway Agency to open a railway station according to the Tariff Regulations and assign this obligation to the owner of the railway infrastructure; the law does not provide for the grounds for refusing to file such proposals to the Federal Railway Agency.

Legitimacy of the actions of the antimonopoly body were confirmed by: Samara Regional Arbitration Court (24th July 2012), the 11th Arbitration Appeal Court (15th October 2012) and the Cassation Court (29th January 2013).

Reference:
On 13th August 2012 Samara OFAS fined “Russian Railways” OJSC 7.85 million Rubles for breaching Part 1 Article 10 of the “Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”. On 6th December 2012 “Russian Railways” OJSC was fined 150,000 Rubles for failure to execute a determination of Samara OFAS.