OREANDA-NEWS. October 27, 2010. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) found that the Social Security Fund of the Russian Federation violated Part 2 Article 17 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” (violating the antimonopoly norms of competitive bidding), reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

The case was initiated upon a petition of “AMD International Sales and Service” Ltd.

The organizer of the auction for supplies of computer equipment for the Social Security Fund of the Russian Federation violated the law by setting requirements, according to which PCs should only have motherboards with chipsets and plugs compatible with Intel processors, which prevented participation of vendors of desktop PCs with AMD processors in the auction.

“The government contract is executed so we will not issue a determination but the case file will be transferred to the Department for Control over State Procurement to confirm the violation of No.94-FZ Federal Law “On State and Municipal Procurement of Goods, Works and Services””, says Vladimir Koudryavtsev, the Head of the FAS Russia’s Information Technologies Department. “We expect that when the tender documentation does not have a direct reference to producers of microprocessors it facilitates development of competition on the relevant markets”.

The FAS Russia’s Expert Council on Developing Competition in Information Technologies formed a Working group, which focuses on implementing European experience of state procurement in Russian practice, where the main characteristics of purchased equipment are the results of performance tests.

Reference:

Part 2 Article 17 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”, along with prohibitions specified in Part 1 of this Article for tenders and auctions, if their organizers or customers are federal executive bodies, executive bodies of the constituent territories of the Russian Federation local self-government bodies, state extra-budgetary funds, as well as for tenders and auctions for state and municipal procurement of goods, works аnd services, prohibits any restrictions of bidders’ participation in auction and tenders not provided for by the federal laws or other normative legal acts.