OREANDA-NEWS. May 18, 2010. The Tyumen Regional Arbitration Court confirmed legitimacy of a 4.7 million Ruble fine imposed by the Office of the Federal Antimonopoly Service in the Tyumen region (the Tyumen OFAS Russia) upon "Siberia-Ural Energy Supplier" OJSC (SUENCO OJSC) for requiring a customer to install a more expensive meter than its market, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

"SUENCO" OJSC is a natural monopoly on the market of services for electric and heating power transmission.

The Tyumen OFAS Russia found that "SUENCO" OJSC violated Article 10 of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition" (which prohibits abusing market dominance). The company unlawfully required the customer to install a particular electric power meter which infringed the interests of the individual in question.

The case was initiated upon a petition of a resident of the Tyumen region.

Тhe Tyumen OFAS Russia established that in accordance with technical conditions for connecting the petitioner's house to the electric power network, the customer had had to install an electric power meter of a precision class no lower than 2 for direct connection. The device also should be able to measure hourly volumes of electric energy and remotely report electric energy consumption to the server of a network company. Therefore, the technical documentation set the requirement for ETsR-3 device as matching all above parameters.

The price for an electric power meter of this make exceeds the prices for its analogues so the customer bought another meter - "MERCURY 230". Technical parameters of the bought device, including the precision class, were identical to the meter specified by the energy company. The customer asked "SUENCO" OJSC to agree upon the meter bought by the customer but the company gave its agreement for the ETsR-3 meter.

Investigating the case, the Commission of the Tyumen OFAS Russia discovered that not all requirements set by "SUENCO" OJSC regarding a meter were legitimate. The Rules for retail electric energy markets do not provide for requirements for installing a meter with capacity for hourly measurement of electric energy and remote information collection system.

For committing the violation the Tyumen OFAS Russia fined "SUENCO" OJSC 4.7 million Rubles. The company challenged the decision on imposing the fine on the grounds that the violation was insignificant. The Court, however, disagreed with the company's position.