The costing standards of the Saratov region are now accessible to everyone

Saratov Regional Ministry of Construction executed a determination of Saratov OFAS and published the regional costing standards with no access restrictions.

Earlier Saratov OFAS exposed violations in the field of publishing the regional costing standards: the information was put on the official web-site of the Ministry of the Saratov Region for Construction and Housing & Utilities Sector and on the web-site of the official publisher in the PDF format without a possibility of searching and copying, with additional symbols above the text, and a blocked print function.

The antimonopoly body concluded that publishing the costing standards has a particular goal – restricting access and possibilities for working with the costing standards.  

Saratov OFAS established that developing the costing standards of the Saratov region was done jointly by “NASI” Non-Profit Partnership and “Saratov Regional Centre for Expert Examination in Construction” Public Autonomous Institution (the founder - Saratov Regional Ministry of Construction). As a result of the anticompetitive agreement, the exclusive rights for the databases with the regional costing standards were formalized for “NASI” and were disseminated through “NASI” and “Gosnormativ” Ltd.

Based on the licensing agreements with “NASI” and “Saratov Regional Centre for Expert Examination in Construction”, “Gosnormativ” Ltd. disseminated the costing standards on a fee-paid basis.

Companies involved in developing the costing standards in the Saratov region confirmed the fact of disseminating databases, which were not generally available, through the above organizations. They also pointed out that the information published on the web-site of the regional Ministry of Construction is not sufficient for independent use in the software for creating construction costing documentation.  

The agreements between “NASI” Non-Profit Partnership, “Saratov Regional Centre for Expert Examination in Construction” and “Gosnormativ” Ltd. restricted competition on the market of developing and selling software on creating construction costing documents.

Saratov OFAS found that the regional Ministry of Construction, “Saratov Regional Centre for Expert Examination in Construction” Public Autonomous Agency, the “National Association of Estimated Pricing and Cost Engineering” Non-Profit Organization and “Gosnormativ” Ltd. violated Article 16 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” and issued a determination to the Ministry to publish the costing standards of the Saratov region with no access restrictions. The government agency executed the determination of the antimonopoly body.