OREANDA-NEWS. December 08, 2009. The Arbitration Court of the Tyumen Region rescinded the claim of the Federal Antimonopoly Service about alleged violation of the antitrust legislation by TNK-BP and cancelled the penalty of 4.2 billion rubles imposed by the Federal Antimonopoly Service on the company, Interfax’s correspondent reported from the court session.

The Federal Antimonopoly Service informed Interfax about its intention to challenge this court decision according to the legislation.

Earlier, the Federal Antimonopoly Service imposed a penalty of 4,197 billion rubles on TNK-BP for alleged violation of the antitrust legislation by abusing its dominating position on the wholesale market of oil products in the first half of 2009.

Apart from that, the Federal Antimonopoly Service imposed a penalty of 4.675 billion rubles on Gazprom Neft, but in early November the Arbitration Court of Saint Petersburg and the Leningrad Region invalidated this penalty. The Federal Antimonopoly Service is going to challenge this court decision, too.

In addition, the Federal Antimonopoly Service imposed a penalty of 6,54 billion rubles on Lukoil and a penalty of 5,28 billion rubles on Rosneft, and these companies are now trying to dispute these penalties at the court of law.

This was the second wave of cases initiated by the Federal Antimonopoly Service against oil companies for abusing their positions on the market of oil products.

During the first wave of such cases late last year, the Federal Antimonopoly Service decided to punish these four major Russian oil companies for raising prices of oil products in Q3 2008 with fines of over 1 billion rubles. Rosneft was fined by 1.508 billion rubles, Lukoil by 1.443 billion rubles, Gazprom Neft by 1.3 billion rubles, and TNK-BP by 1.112 billion rubles.

Currently, the Federal Antimonopoly Service and representatives of oil companies are trying to join their effort and work out a price formula for oil products valid on the territory of the Russian Federation. The Federal Antimonopoly Service suggests using prices of oil products at the Rotterdam exchange as the guide for fuel price formation on the domestic market of the Russian Federation, whereas the oil companies propose several other trading floors, in particular, Mediterranean, Singapore, and USA commodity exchanges.