Arbitration Court upheld the fine for MIIT

On 20 February 2016, Moscow Arbitration Court upheld a determination on imposing a fine upon “Moscow State University of Railway Engineering” (MIIT) Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education. MIIT is held administratively liable for violating the antimonopoly law and fined 5.75 million RUB.

In particular, Moscow Arbitration Court established that FAS had imposed a fine upon MIIT factoring in all mitigating and aggravating circumstances; the size of the fine is reasonable and is not subject to reduction.

On 10 June 2014, FAS found that the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation and MIIT violated Article 16 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”. The University concluded an anticompetitive agreement in the course of a tender for research work on “Devising scientifically-grounded proposals for a system of training transport safety specialists, factoring in specifics of different types of transport, under the frame of an Integrated transport safety programme for the population”. Later MIIT was held administratively liable and fined 5,750,000 RUB for concluding a competition-restricting agreement.

Deputy Head of FAS Anti-Cartel Department, Andrey Filimonov, pointed out that FAS undertakes constant efforts to expose and suppress anticompetitive agreements involving the authorities.

He emphasized: “Shaping awareness that a company participating in a prohibited agreement will inevitably be punished is a necessary preventative element of such efforts”.