OREANDA-NEWS. June 03, 2008. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) initiated a case against the Forestry Department in the Moscow region and Moscow (Mosleskhoz) for violating Article 17 of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition" (restricting access to the trading). The case was scheduled on 27the May 2008, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

The case was initiated following the results of the inspection organized by FAS Russia to verify whether Mosleskhoz observed the antimonopoly legislation, as well as petitions of the persons that were not allowed to take part in the forestry auctions.

Under Chapter 8 of the Forestry Code of the Russian Federation, the auctions should be open. Therefore, under Article 448 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, an auction organizer must accept the bids from any person whishing to participate in the auction.

FAS Russia established that Mosleskhoz issued the Order "On a forestry auction for selling the right to lease forest plots owned by the state". It set the beginning and the deadline for accepting the bids: 10, 14 and 12 December 2007 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Under the auctions documentation and auctions notifications, the bids were accepted on the specified dates and time at the address of the organizer - Mosleskhoz.

At the same time, the notifications published by Mosleskhoz in a periodical print media and on the official web-site, did not contain information regarding preliminary registration for submitting the action bids. Furthermore, the officers of Mosleskhoz personally accepted the bids from. The bidders had not possibility to submit their bids in any other way, in particular, by post.

Therefore, Mosleskhoz set illegal restrictions for the bidders.

Article 17 of the Federal Law "On Protection of Competition" forbids the actions that lead or may lead to preventing, restricting or eliminating competition in bidding, as well as forbids restricting the access to the bidding, which is not specified by the federal laws or other legal and regulatory acts, if bidding is organized by the federal executive bodies.

Therefore, the actions of Mosleskhoz could have violated the antimonopoly legislation.