Gazprom Neft wins court case against FAS

The FAS decision that Gazprom Neft had breached anti-monopoly legislation in the wholesale petrochemicals market has been invalidated by the arbitration court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region in Russia. The court has cancelled the fine of 4.675 billion rubles (US$162.01 million) that the FAS imposed on Gazprom Neft in August. In the second half of 2008, the FAS started investigating Russia’s largest oil companies: Rosneft, LUKoil, TNK-BP and Gazprom Neft. All four have been fined twice by the FAS for abusing their dominant position in the gasoline, diesel fuel, and aviation fuel markets. The four companies have been ordered to pay fines totaling more than 14 billion rubles (US$485.16 million), but no fines have been paid as yet, since the companies are challenging the FAS decisions in court. (November 20, 2009)