COURTS OF THREE INSTANCES SUPPORTED FAS DECISION ON ROAD CONSTRUCTION CARTEL

Arbitration Court of the Volga region confirmed legitimacy and reasonableness of the conclusions reached by Saratov OFAS in a case against the Ministry of Transport and Road Facilities of the Saratov region and “Avtograde” JSC

Investigation of the case against the Ministry and “Avtograde” JSC on violating Article 16 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” was completed back in December 2016.

“Avtograde” JSC started the works on constructing “Ozinki-Perelyub” road before concluding the relevant contract for 71.8 million RUB.

At the same time, the Ministry of Transport and Road Facilities of the Saratov region included a provision in the contract on executing the road construction works within three days. The works had not been completed upon the expiry of that period.

In spite of this, the contract sum was fully paid by the ordering party, without penalty.

As a result of the anticompetitive agreement, the losses of the municipal budget exceeded 70 million RUB, which constituted the grounds for opening a criminal case upon the fact of large-scale in the course of construction works (Part 3 Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

Head of FAS Anti-Cartel Department, Andrey Tenishev pointed out: “Systemic efforts to decartelize the road construction sector are one of the stages of pursuing 2018-2020 National Competition Development Plan approved by an Order of the President of the Russian Federation”.