OREANDA-NEWS. On January 29, 2009 To prevent coordination of economic activities between participants of the markets of pharmaceuticals, the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) warned DSM Group that it should refrain from making public forecasts about possible prices, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

On 20th January 2009 the "Commersant" newspaper published an article "Pharmaceuticals will be 20% more expensive", which was also placed on the official website of DSM Group and its content was disseminated by information agencies. In this article, experts of the industry research center of DSM Group projected 20% price increase for pharmaceuticals in 2009.

DSM Group is involved in marketing research of the Russian pharmaceuticals market and provides advertising support to the companies in the industry. Therefore, such publications may be understood by market participants as a certain reference point in pricing policy and in this context can be classified as a violation of the antimonopoly legislation.

Part 3 Article 11 of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition": coordination of economic activity of market participants by physical persons, commercial organizations and nonprofit organizations is forbidden if such coordination results or can result in restricted competition.