OREANDA-NEWS. November 02, 2010. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) found that the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phyto-Sanitary Supervision (Rosselkhoznadzor) violated Part 1 Article 15 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

In September 2010, FAS Russia initiated a case against Rosselkhoznadzor upon a petition of “MKM” Ltd. Investigating the case, the Antimonopoly Service established that in 2008 Rosselkhoznadzor issued a letter obligating importers of edible poppy to apply for confirmation of quality and safety conformance of the goods imported to the Russian Federation and for quality certificates only to the “Federal Centre for Safety and Quality of Grain and its By-Products” (a Federal State Institution) in Moscow, and its branches in St Petersburg and Vladivostok. Such actions of Rosselkhoznadzor restricted a choice between economic entities providing such services.

As a result, edible poppy importers incurred additional expenses for transporting product samples from all-over Russia to those institutions as well as expenses due to higher prices of their services in comparison with the services rendered by other certified laboratories.

The FAS Russia’s Commission established that Rosselkhoznadzor certified 60 testing laboratories (centres) in Russia to issue quality certificates for grain, grits, compound feed-stuff and components for their production, as well as grain byproducts. Therefore, actions undertaken by the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phyto-Sanitary Supervision violated Part 1 Article 15 of the Federal Law “on protection of Competition”, which prohibits federal executive bodies, the authorities of the constituent territories of the Russian Federation, local self-government bodies, other bodies and organizations exercising the functions of the above bodies, as well as state extra-budgetary funds, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation to pass acts and (or) exercise actions (omissions) that lead or can lead to preventing, eliminating or restricting competition.

In course of the investigation, Rosselkhoznadzor accepted that the 2008 letter shall be considered to have lost force.

FAS Russia closed the antimonopoly case against Rosselkhoznadzor due to voluntary elimination of the violation.