OREANDA-NEWS. April 2, 2010. The Federal Arbitration Court of the North-Caucasus District confirmed validity of the decision of the Office of the Federal Antimonopoly Service in the Rostov region (the Rostov OFAS Russia), which found that "YuGK TGK-8" Ltd. had abused market dominance (Article 10 of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition"). The company violated the law by using wrong rates for calculating the cost of utilities provided to "Druzhba" Housing Association.

The Court of the First Instance and the Appeal Court arrived to the same conclusions.

Also on 11th March 2010, the Arbitration Court upheld the determination of the Rostov OFAS Russia on administrative sanctions against another resource-supplying organization - "Rostovregiongaz" Ltd. The company violated pricing procedures by selling gas to the "Union of Reserve Officers" Housing Cooperative газ ignoring the rate used for calculations of payment for the population. For committing this violation "Rostovregiongaz" Ltd. was fined 4,449,100 Rubles.

Vadim Korneev, the Head of the Rostov OFAS Russia, said that in those cases population is the actual consumer of utility services; therefore, under Part 1 Article 157 of the Housing Code of the Russian Federation utility payments should be calculated on the basis of consumption determined according to meter readings.

"In the absence of such meters payments should be calculated according to the consumption standards, approved by the local self-government bodies, using the rates fixed for the population", continues Mr. Korneev. "It is fixed in the second Paragraph Clause 15 of the Rules for providing utility services to the population, approved by No.307 Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation. It directly specifies that the executor, i.e., the managing organization, should buy utility services from a resources-supplying organization, which provides utility services, at the rates fixed for the population."