Three pharmaceutical distributors admitted to cartel conspiracy

Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has found pharmaceutical suppliers Jodas Expoim LLC, FC Pharmakoppola LLC, and Saticom LLC guilty of forming a cartel to maintain prices at auctions for the supply of medicines and medical devices to medical institutions, according to the agency's press service. The companies admitted to entering into an anti-competitive agreement.

The cartel operated for more than three years across 13 regions of Russia, including Moscow and the Moscow region, the FAS statement said: "The cartel's illegal activities brought the violators over 200 million rubles." The companies participated in tenders for the supply of antiviral drugs, antibiotics, and medicines for treating infectious diseases, most of which belong to the Vital and Essential Drugs (VED) category.

The FAS initiated a case against Jodas Expoim, FC Pharmakoppola, and Saticom in March 2016 on grounds of violating Clause 2, Part 1, Article 11 of the federal law "On Protection of Competition." The FAS notes that the defendants admitted to concluding an anti-competitive agreement by using the leniency program. According to the notes to Article 14.32 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation, a legal entity that is the first to voluntarily report a cartel to the FAS will be exempt from liability for participating in it. However, at the time the entity applies to the FAS with information about the collusion, the regulator must not be aware of the offense or possess relevant documents. Entities that admit to the offense second and third receive the minimum fine.

"There is a clarification from the Supreme Arbitration Court stating that companies can make a statement admitting to a cartel before the antimonopoly commission issues a decision," FAS representative Daria Silkova explained to Vademecum. "In this case, the first to confess is exempt from liability, while the second and third pay a fine of 10% of the contract value."

"FC Pharmakoppola ranks 62nd in the Vademecum 'TOP100 Government Market Distributors for 2015' rating with a total contract value of 831 million rubles, while Jodas Expoim ranks 70th with a contract volume of 762 million rubles."