OREANDA-NEWS. On 24th June 2008, the Moscow Arbitration Court confirmed validity of the decision and determination of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) regarding the Federal Service for Environmental, and Technological and Nuclear Supervision (Rostekhnadzor).

On 5th December 2007, FAS Russia recognized that Rostekhnadzor violated Article 15 of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition".

FAS Russia established that a federal executive body (Rostekhnadzor) passed statutory regulations and exercised actions that led or could have led to preventing, restricting or eliminating competition.

Starting from 2006, Rostekhnadzor, under Article 20 of the Budget Code of the Russian Federation, appendix 11.1 to the Federal Law "On Budgetary Classification in the Russian Federation" and decrees of the Government of the Russian Federation "On the measures for enforcing the federal law "On the Federal Budget for 2006" and "On the measures for enforcing the federal law "On the Federal Budget for 2007", transferred some of its authority for administering charges for adverse impact upon the environment to a subordinate "Centre for Laboratory Analysis and Technical Measurements" Federal State Enterprise ("FGU TsLATI"). In 2006, following the Order of Rostekhnadzor, FGU TsLATI was given the authority for maintaining the Register of entities adversely affecting the environment (in course of processing the antimonopoly case, FAS Russia received the documents confirming that this function was transferred back to Rostekhnadzor).

Having obtained a new General Permission of the Ministry of Finances for extra-budgetary activities, Rostekhnadzor included in the Organizational Charters of subordinated budgetary organizations all types of environmental services as the sources for building up extra-budgetary funds and activities for using them. In particular, it included the services for preparing feasibility reports to issue permissions for emission, discharge, waste disposal, as well as devising standards for ecological certification and environmental audit.

FAS Russia recognized that Rostekhnadzor violated the antimonopoly legislation by passing statutory regulations and exercising actions that restricted competition on the market of preparing feasibility reports to issue permissions for emission, discharge, waste disposal, as well as devising standards for ecological certification and environmental audit.

Based on this decision, FAS Russia issued a determination to eliminate the violations, namely: introduce, according to the established procedures, amendments to the General Permission for opening accounts for accounting the funds, obtained through entrepreneurial or other profit-generating activities in terms of excluding the types of commercial activities, which, in course of administering changes, lead or can lead to preventing, restricting or eliminating competition. Also, exclude these types of commercial activities from the Organizational Charter of FGU TsLATI.

FGU TsLATI disagreed with the decision and determination of the antimonopoly body and appealed. The Court, however, dismissed the claim of FGU TsLATI and, therefore, confirmed validity of the decision and determination passed by the antimonopoly authority.