The Court of Appeals on February 4th 2010 upheld the decision of the Arbitration Court of Moscow over the Federal Antimonopoly Service’s antitrust decision on Emergency Response Service (ERS) for oil spills and dismissed an appeal of the Federal Transport Oversight Agency (FTOA) suing against the FAS’s decision, PortNews IAA reports citing Alexei Belov, vice-president of the Russian Association of Marine and River Bunker, a third party in the trial.

As an earlier report said, quoting the FAS, RosTransNadzor “had violated paragraph 2 of part 1 of article 15 of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition" in terms of undue interference with the implementation of the activities of economic entities in the provision of services related to the prevention and elimination of emergency oil spills and petroleum products in seaport”. The FAS ordered to eliminate the violations.

Earlier, the Russian Association of Sea and River Bunker had applied to the regional St. Petersburg FAS and Federal Antimonopoly office in connection with the requirements by the Big Port of St. Petersburg Authority imposing from May 2008 additional mandatory certification of emergency teams ensuring environmental safety at the seaport of the Big Port of St. Petersburg.

Until mid-2008 a dozen of firms provided the emergency response services at the port and were certified in accordance with the requirements established by the Federal law.

The Federal Antimonopoly Service found that the additional certification regulations imposed by the RosTransNadzor (of the Ministry of Transport) on ERS firms might have a negative impact on competition in the emergency services and restrict some counterparts from the market.