OREANDA-NEWS. February 13, 2014. The Office of the Federal Antimonopoly Service in the Voronezh region (Voronezh OFAS Russia) found that “Sozvezdie” Concern” OJSC restricted competition in the course of auctions for supplying 4 sets of measuring equipment and a sheet bending press (a violation of Part 1 Article 17 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”).

“Sozvezdie” Concern” OJSC specialized in developing and manufacturing equipment, systems and means of communications for the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and other special units, as well as dual-purpose products and products of non-military nature.

The auction documentation required from procurement participants that the proceeds from selling goods, products, works, services in 2012 (w/o VAT) must be over 1 billion RUB. Based on this requirement, any large company with the suitable proceeds that did not specialize on supplying such equipment could take part in the auction. Small companies, however, did not have such possibilities.

The complainants were representatives of small business that have experience on executing such contracts for supplying similar equipment.

The Commission of Voronezh OFAS Russia concluded that the requirements for the size of the proceeds were inadequate to the reserved maximal contract prices: the reserved contract prices for supplying 4 sets of measuring equipment in total reached over 226 million RUB, while the reserved contract price for supplying a sheet bending press – around 7.7 million RUB.

“The auction requirements on such large proceeds per year considerably restrict competition between procurement participants and completely excludes participation of small companies, since their proceeds are invariably lower than one billion RUB, under the law on developing small and medium business”, pointed out the Head of Voronezh OFAS Russia, Vladimir Rokhmistrov.

The Commission of the antimonopoly body found that “Sozvezdie” Concern” OJSC violated Part 1 Article 17 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”, that prohibits actions in the course of auctions, which lead or can lead to preventing, restricting or eliminating competition, and issued determinations to cancel the auctions results.