Arbitration Court confirmed an anticompetitive agreement between “NASI”, “Gosnormativ” and GAU

Ingushetia OFAS exposed an anticompetitive agreement on the market for developing and adopting costing standards as well as on the market of creating programs for PC

The Commission of Ingushetia OFAS established a fact of concerted actions between the authorized bodies – “Republican Centre for Pricing in Construction” State Autonomous Institution of the Republic of Ingushetia (GAU) and economic entities – “NASI” [the National Association of Estimated Pricing and Cost Engineering] Non-Profit Organization and “Goznormativ” Ltd.

According to Ingushetia OFAS, actions of “NASI”, “Gosnormativ” Ltd. and GAU forced developers of regional costing standards and developers of costing software to use databases with regional costing standards, exclusive rights for which are possessed by “NASI” instead of regional costing standards.

As follows form the case materials, “NASI”, “Gosnormativ” Ltd. and GAU concluded licensing agreements, under which dissemination of regional costing standard for construction world TSNB TER-2001 by “Gosnormativ” Ltd. takes place only as part of software products, to which the right for reproducing the Reference base applies.

Based on such contracts, regional costing standards (TSN), indices, additions can be provided only by “NASI”, “Gosnormativ” Ltd. and GAU, or the persons that obtained licenses (sublicenses) for the right to use databases containing costing and informational-and-reference materials on pricing for a particular license fee. It means that economic entities involved in developing project documentation, should incur additional costs for obtaining information mandatory for use in the construction field. Economic entities developing costing programmes must acquire the right for reproducing the Reference base in order to provide software on the relevant market.

The case decision states that actions of the participants of the anticompetitive Agreement (“NASI”, “Gosnormativ” Ltd. and GAU) restricted competition on the market of developing and adoption computer software for creating construction cost estimate documentation.

 “NASI” and “Gosnormativ” Ltd. disagreed with the decision of Ingushetia OFAS and filed a lawsuit to the Arbitration Court of the Republic of Ingushetia but to no avail.