Arbitration Court confirmed the rightness of conclusions made by Tomsk OFAS

The antimonopoly body found signs of violating the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” by Tomsk Regional Health Care Department

In October 2016, based on the findings of an unscheduled inspection at Tomsk Regional Forensic-and-Medical Examination Bureau, Tomsk Office of the Antimonopoly Service revealed that the budgetary institution had performed the functions of an authority in the part of forensic medical examination.

The Bureau founder is Tomsk Regional Health Care Department.

The law on state forensic medical examination does not provide for forensic medical organizations exercising any other activity apart from expert examination.

At the same time, the antimonopoly body established that Tomsk Regional Health Care Department had approved amendments to the Statute of Tomsk Regional Forensic-and-Medical Examination Bureau enabling the Bureau to offer paid funeral ceremonial services. Such services are not included in the main types of Bureau activities; therefore, the amendments to the Statute are contrary to the current law.

This situation can force citizens to enter into contracts with the Bureau for ceremonial services. It leads to breaching consumer rights to freely choose providers and to restricting and eliminating competition on the market of funeral and ceremonial services.

Tomsk OFAS found that actions by Tomsk Regional Health Care Department have signs of violating the antimonopoly law (Parts 1, 3 Article 15 the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”) and issued a warning to eliminate them by 15 November 2016.

The Health Care Department disagreed with the antimonopoly body and filed a lawsuit. Tomsk Regional Arbitration Court dismissed the claim and confirmed legitimacy of the warning issued by the antimonopoly body.