OREANDA-NEWS. January 30, 2012. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) found that the Ministry of Interior of the Russian Federation violated the antimonopoly law, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

Protecting facilities subject to state protection is a function of the Ministry of Interior (police). Thus, the Ministry violated Part 3 Article 15 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” in the part of assigning a function of the federal executive body to an economic entity.

The FAS Commission also found that “Okhrana” Federal State Unitary Enterprise of the Ministry of Interior violated Clause 1 Part 1 Article 10 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” by fixing monopolistically high price for protecting facilities subject to state protection in the Lipetsk region in 2010 and Q1 2011.

The case was initiated upon petitions of economic entities operating on the facilities subject to state protection and located, in particular, in the Lipetsk region. The petitioners concluded contracts with “Okhrana” Federal State Unitary Enterprise of the Ministry of Interior for protection of their facilities. The prices for services of “Okhrana” Federal State Unitary Enterprise increased nearly twofold in September 2009 - January 2011.

Investigating the case, FAS Commission established that “Okhrana” Federal State Unitary Enterprise had dominant position on the regional markets of the services for protection of the facilities subject to state protection. Currently “Okhrana” Federal State Unitary Enterprise protects facilities subject to state protection on the basis of its Statues approved by the Ministry of Interior.

“Under the framework of the Government Commission on Administrative Reform, FAS Russia finds its necessary to consider the procedures for exercising functions for protecting facilities subject to state protection by the Ministry of Interior”, pointed out the Head of FAS Department for Administrative Reform and Control of Paid State Services, Lyudmila Solontsova.