A case in Samara region on violations in the course of developing and disseminating construction costing standards

Samara OFAS exposed signs of restricting competition on the regional markets of developing and implementing computer estimate programs and design-and-estimate documentation

Based on the results of an investigation completed by Samara OFAS upon instructions from the Central FAS Office, a case is opened against the Ministry of Construction of the Samara region, “Centre for Pricing in Construction” Ltd. (“CPC” Ltd.), the “National Association of estimated pricing and value engineering” Non-Profit Organization (“NASI”) and “Gosnormativ” Ltd. upon signs of violating Article 16 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”.

Samara OFAS established that regional costing standards in the Samara region, necessary to determine the construction estimated costs by means of budgetary funds, had been devised by private companies “NASI” and “CPC” Ltd. The costing standards were placed in an open access in the format preventing their use by the interested persons: with restricting lines over the text of the standards, absence of the functions of copying, searching text fragments and printing.

The anticompetitive agreement resulted in fixing the exclusive rights to “NASI” and “CPC” Ltd for the databases with the costing standards and disseminating them only upon arrangements with these organizations. Like in many other regions of Russia, the regional costing standards were disseminated through a “NASI” subsidiary - “Gosnormativ” Ltd., which charged a fee for databases with the costing standards as for an item of intellectual property.

Head of FAS Anti-Cartel Department Andrey Tenishev pointed out: “Regional antimonopoly bodies continue their system-wide efforts on exposing incidents of restricting access to the regional costing standards and other design-and-documentation information. So far, cases on violating the antimonopoly law on the regional markets of developing and implementing computer costing programs and design-and-estimate documentation are opened in more than half subjects of the Russian Federation. In some Russian regions, particularly, in the Saratov, Nizhny Novgorod and Tula regions, FAS has been able to ensure free access to the construction costing standards, thanks to the efforts of regional antimonopoly bodies”.

In August 2015, FAS found that Gosstroi [the State Committee for Construction], the Ministry of Regional Development, the Ministry for Construction, the “Federal Centre for Pricing in Construction and Construction Materials Industry” Federal Autonomous Enterprise (“FCCP”), “Gosstroismeta” Ltd., the “National Association of estimated pricing and value 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 antimonopoly Offices to investigate regional markets of devising and implementing construction design-and-estimate documentation as well as developing computer programs on creating such documentation.