The Commission of the Leningrad Department of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) of Russia on April 17, 2012 found the actions of OJSC Russian Railways (RZD) (in relation to Petrotrans-Primorsk company) violated the federal law "On Protection of Competition," the antitrust agency said on Wednesday.
The company Petrotrans-Primorsk Ltd. operating in the port of Primorsk filed an appeal with the antimonopoly service against the Russian state-owned rail monopoly in January 2012. The company planned to build a spur line to deliver oil products to the sea port and submitted an application to RZD as the owner of public infrastructure for coordination of the rail track project. In its turn, the RZD preconditioned the project approval in requirements specification, requiring the applicant to perform some activities on the development of the entire railway networks in general use.
The antimonopoly agency said it had warned Russian Railways to drop the extra requirements imposed on Petrotrans-Primorsk preventing access to the market of railway infrastructure and oil products, breaching of paragraphs 3 and 9 of Part 1 of Article 10 of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition, but the monopolist ignored the warning, the FAS said. So, FAS may slap the state-owned rail monopoly with a fine that could be 1% to 15% of annual turnover and is calculated depending on the severity of violations.
Petrotrans-Primorsk LLC operating at export oil port of Primorsk is part of Transneft.
