APPEAL COURT SUPPORTED FAS IN A CASE ON COLLUSION OF EQUIPMENT SUPPLIERS FOR FORENSIC EXPERTISES
The 9th Arbitration Appeal Court reversed the ruling of Moscow Arbitration Court on the case against suppliers of forensic equipment
In January 2018 FAS found that “Crim-market.ru” Ltd., “AT & F” Ltd., “Technocrim” Ltd., “Crimservice” Ltd., “A-Tech” Ltd., “Expert KM” Ltd. (the “Crim-market” Group), “East-European Managing Company” Ltd., “Intersertvice” Ltd. (the “VEUK” Group) are guilty of concluding and implementing an anticompetitive agreement with the purpose of maintain prices at tenders of the Ministry of Interior and Russian Federal Centre of Forensic Expertise at the Ministry of Justice.
The anticompetitive agreement led to imitating competition in the course of joint participation in tenders and refusal to be to the benefit of other agreement participants. After concluding the government contract, the “Crime-market” Group and “VEUK” Ltd. signed supply agreements at the prices nearly twice as low as the initial maximum contract price.
Head of FAS Anti-Cartel Department Andrey Tenishev commented: “It is a very important ruling for us when the Appeal Court precisely determined corpus delicti and supported FAS formalizing the established judicial anti-cartel practice”.