18 September 2020 the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (the FAS) published the full decisions on cases No. 1-14-163/00-08-18 and 1-14-164\00-08-18. According to the decisions, Daimler AG and KYB Corporation breached art. 14.8 of the Russian Antitrust law by committing acts of unfair competition.
It was to consider whether a right holder is entitled to ignore or groundlessly reject requests from potential importers of goods, marked with right holder designations. The FAS rejected such a right and indicated the following criteria to be met to acknowledge unfair competition:
- Right holder actions lead to restriction of the access to the goods
- There is no procedure to consider potential importers’ requests to permit the goods import
- There are no criteria for assessing such requests and granting or refusing to grant the import permission
- Consumers are interested in buying goods from potential importers (incl. orders receipts from consumers)
The mentioned decisions are grounded on the position indicated in the Russian Constitutional Court Ruling No. 8-П dd. 13.02.2018 and develop the FAS practice related to the restriction of unlimited right holders monopoly.
We consider the FAS position essential for Russian parallel import practice since specific criteria for unfair and anti-competitive right holders behaviour are established for the first time.