CRIMINAL CASE AGAINST PHARMA CARTEL IN KARELIA IS TAKEN TO COURT
Investigation of a criminal case against a 73-million RUB cartel is completed – case was opened upon materials forwarded from Karelia OFAS
The Prosecutor’s Office of Petrozavodsk approved accusation on the criminal case against the cartel formed by “Medlon”, “NikaMed” and “Medlon-DV”. In 2014-2017, the companies maintained prices at 94 auctions for supplying medical equipment, expendables and medicine to public hospitals in Karelia. The government customers at the auctions were more than 20 healthcare facilities of the Republic of Karelia.
Based on the preliminary investigation, officials guilty of organizing the cartel were indicted under Clause “a” Part 2 Article 178 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and the criminal case is referred to Court. The punishment for Part 2 Article 178 of the Criminal Code is up to 6 years imprisonment.
Head of FAS Anti-Cartel Department Andrey Tenishev pointed out: “It is the fifth criminal case against a cartel taken to Court this year. One of them – in Samara - ended with a guilty verdict, when two of the accused were sentenced to imprisonment and others were given non-custodial punishments. We watch carefully the fate of each criminal case, since each is a precedent and forms the law enforcement practice. There should not be many such cases but each sentence on criminal cases against cartels must have a strong preventative meaning”.
“Completing the investigation of this criminal case is a result of efficient collaboration between the antimonopoly and law enforcement bodies in Karelia. Cartels incur enormous damages to the economic security of the state. That is why countering anticompetitive agreements in various sectors of the economy is a priority of the National Plan for Developing Competition in the Russian Federation. We must constantly strengthen and enhance the quality of our collaboration, making punishments of the above violations inevitable”, commented Arthur Pryakhin, Head of Karelia OFAS.