A new case against violations in the field of developing construction costing standards

Novgorod OFAS has opened a case against the “Novgorod Regional Pricing Centre for Construction” State Budgetary Institution, “NASI” Non-Profit Organization and “Gosnormativ” Ltd. upon elements of violating Article 16 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”.

OFAS suspects that the companies concluded and participated in an agreement that could restrict competition on the markets of developing and selling costing software and design estimation documentation of the Novgorod region.

An inspection showed: the regional costing standards of the Novgorod region, required to estimate the construction costs out of public funds, were devised by private companies. In an open access the standards were put in a format hampering their use by the interested persons: with restriction lines over the texts of the standards and absence of some important functions such as copying, searching text fragments and printing.

As in many other Russian provinces, the regional costing standards were disseminated through a “NASI” subsidiary - “Gosnormativ” Ltd. that charged a fee for the databases with costing standards as for objects of intellectual property.

“Initiating cases for restricting access to the regional costing standards on a regular basis in various subjects of the Russian Federation, particularly, in the Novgorod region, proves that this is a system-wide and complex problem. Today, after FAS regional bodies issued the relevant decisions and warnings, the costing standards are properly published in a number of regions. Such efforts will be continued”, pointed out Head of FAS Anti-Cartel Department, Andrey Tenishev.

In August 2015 FAS found that “Gosstroi” [the Federal Agency for Construction and Housing & Utilities Sector], the Ministry for Regional Development, the Ministry of Construction, the “Federal Centre for Pricing in Construction and Construction Materials Industry” Federal Autonomous Institution (“FTsTsS”), “Gosstroismeta” Ltd., the “National Association of Costing and Cost Engineering” Non-Profit Organization (“NASI”), “Stroiinformizdat” Ltd. and “Gosnormativ” Ltd. violating Article 16 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”. Then FAS instructed its regional Offices to carry out investigations on the markets of developing and selling software for creating construction costs documentation and developing and construction design and estimate documentation in the regions.