On September 27, 2011, the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia issued Order No. 674 (hereinafter referred to as the “Order of the Federal Antimonopoly Service”) to include JSC TransContainer and JSCo RZD as a group of persons in the register of business entities that have a share in the market of loading and unloading (crane) operations with general purpose containers (cargo in general purpose containers) and storage services for general purpose containers (cargo in general purpose containers), performed in public places (railway stations opened under paragraphs 5, 8, 10 of Tariff Guide No. 4) with a share of more than 50%. 

Disagreeing with the Order, JSC TransContainer filed an application with the Moscow City Arbitration Court declaring the Order of the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia invalid.

On April 11, 2012, the Moscow Arbitration Court refused JSC TransContainer to satisfy the requirement to invalidate the Order of the Federal Antimonopoly Service.

However, on July 18, 2012, the Ninth Arbitration Court of Appeal upheld the appeal of JSC TransContainer, declaring the Order of the Federal Antimonopoly Service invalid.

Thus, the court of appeal confirmed the position of JSC TransContainer, according to which the Analytical Report, which served as the basis for the publication of the Order of the Federal Antimonopoly Service, was prepared in violation of the requirements of the law. First of all, the subject matter of the study of the Federal Antimonopoly Service was unreasonably only public areas where only the JSCo RZD and JSC TransContainer perform their loading and unloading operations and storage services. At the same time, the Federal Antimonopoly Service did not take into account the non-public market, where the bulk of loading and unloading operations and storage services are carried out during transportation of containers by rail. According to the transport legislation, the consignor has the right to send, and the consignee has the right to receive the goods both in public places and in non-public places (access roads) at its discretion, therefore a single market for loading and unloading operations with containers and container storage services on the railway transport may not be divided into the market for public places and non-public places, since these places at almost every station compete with each other. In addition, the Federal Antimonopoly Service incorrectly established product boundaries of the product market; no work was done to obtain complete and objective information about all business entities operating in this product market; the volume of the commodity market is unreliable; many of the conclusions contained in the Analytical Report are not documented.

JSC TransContainer initially considered the Order of the Federal Antimonopoly Service unlawful and did not reflect the actual position of JSC TransContainer in the market of loading and unloading (crane) operations with general purpose containers (goods in general purpose containers) and services for storing general purpose containers (goods in general purpose containers). The court reasonably considered the list of violations that the Federal Antimonopoly Service made during the preparation of the analytical report to be sufficient to invalidate the Order of the Federal Antimonopoly Service on the inclusion of JSC TransContainer and JSCo RZD in the register,” commented Viktor Markov, Director for Legal Affairs and Property Management.

The case on declaring the Order of the Federal Antimonopoly Service invalid is not the only dispute between JSC TransContainer and the Federal Antimonopoly Service in the courts. Over the entire period of conducting business activities of JSC TransContainer (since July 2006), the Federal Antimonopoly Service filed 41 cases against the Company regarding violation of antitrust laws. Moreover, 30 cases were won by the company, including in the courts, the remaining 11 cases are under consideration.