FAS found Samsung subsidiary guilty of coordinating prices for gadgets in Russia

The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) of Russia announced on Monday that Samsung's Russian subsidiary, Samsung Electronics Rus, was found guilty of coordinating prices for gadgets in Russia.

The regulator’s message states that through its Russian division, the South Korean manufacturer coordinated pricing for its devices in a number of enterprises, including VimpelCom PJSC, RTK JSC, Svyaznoy Logistika JSC, Eldorado LLC, MVM LLC, NAO Ulmart, Mobile-Logistic LLC, Technopoint JSC, Svyaznoy Network LLC, Citilink LLC, DNS Retail LLC, TLF LLC and Open Technologies LLC.

The conclusions of the FAS Commission regarding the fact that the Russian division of Samsung coordinates its activities in the sale of devices in the Russian market were announced in the beginning of April. And a couple of months before that, in February, the regulator aroused in relation to Samsung Electronics Rus, a case on signs of price coordination for smartphones after an unscheduled on-site inspection revealed signs of a violation by the company of part 5 of article 11 of the law on protection of competition.

As a result of the audit, the fact of coordination of the economic activity of Samsung resellers was established, expressed in setting and maintaining prices for a number of smartphones and tablets, including models of smartphones Galaxy A5 2017, Galaxy S7, Galaxy S8 Plus, Galaxy J1 2016, Galaxy J3 2017, Galaxy J5 2017, Galaxy J7 2016, Galaxy J7 2017, and Galaxy Tab A 7.0, Galaxy Tab E 9.6, Galaxy Tab A 10.1, Galaxy Tab S2 VE and Galaxy Tab 3 Lite 7.0.

For violation of this article, the maximum penalty in the form of a fine of 5 million rubles is expected.

“Illegal coordination is very common in the tech retail markets, especially for popular tech novelties. In their desire to get the maximum benefit from selling their goods through dealers, companies impose prices and terms of sale on them, which is illegal, ”the press service of the regulator quotes Andrei Tsarikovskiy, deputy head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service. At the same time, it was noted that the company provided all possible assistance to representatives of the department during the investigation.

Source: 3dnews.ru