FAS requested three more stevedoring companies to pay income gained through violating the antimonopoly law to the budget

On 24 March 2017, the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) found that “First Container Terminal” JSC (“FCT” JSC), “Petrolessport” JSC and “Vostochnaya Stevedoring Company” Ltd. (“VSC” Ltd.) violated Clause 1 Part 1 Article 10 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”. “FCT” JSC and “Petrolessport” JSC fixed and maintained monopolistically high prices for container transshipment services in “St Petersburg Big Seaport” maritime port from 1 January 2015. FAS also found that “VSC” Ltd. fixed and maintained monopolistically high prices for container transshipment services in “Vostochny” seaport.

FAS opened cases against stevedoring companies on 17 June 2016 based on monitoring prices for cargo loading-unloading services in the seaports of the Russian Federation.

Analysis of the companies’ financial-and-economic performance, carried out by FAS in the course of case investigation, showed that there are no conditions that can influence the growth of prices for container transshipments services, while the growth of companies’ cost-effectiveness against declining transshipment scope and costs reduction was directly related to the growth of prices for container transshipment services in 2015.

For instance, in spite of decreasing scope of container transshipment services, the profitability of “FCT” JSC in 2015 was 333%. Despite dropping volume of services and reduced costs required for production and rendering container transshipment services, profitability of “Petrolessport” JSC reached 145%, and “VSC” Ltd. – 207%.

FAS points out that high tariffs for container loading-unloading fixed by “FCT” JSC, “Petrolessport” JSC and “VSC” Ltd. adversely affect the interests of persons that do not use the services of the above stevedoring companies and operate on a different market. In particular, the growth of the cargo transshipment costs (including containers) in seaports increases price burden upon consignees, which negatively influences the volume of cargo transshipment by railway transport towards seaports.

As a result, in view of the decision of FAS Presidium on the form of punishment for the violations, when damages considerably exceed the maximum turnover fine, the antimonopoly body issued injunctions to the companies to stop violating the antimonopoly law and transfer the income gained through their monopolistic activity to the federal budget.

On 22 March, FAS also made a similar decision regarding “Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port” PJSC.