Antimonopoly Service loses case of alleged illegal quota transfer

Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has lost the case of allegedly illegal transfer of quota shares for pollock capture in the Sea of Okhotsk as a result of reorganization of companies - from Ayrup LLC to Salyut LLC and later to Poronai LLC. The production output under these quotas in 2021 amounted to 10.88 thousand metric tons, reports Megafishnet.com.

According to Fishnews, FAS claimed that the Salyut company, which transferred its quotas to Poronai, did not have the rights to them itself. Salyut LLC was formed as a separation from Airup LLC with the simultaneous transfer of the quota shares to Salyut.

In 2019, FAS established that Airup was under the illegal control of a foreign investor. The antimonopoly department decided that Airup should have been deprived of the fishing rights and therefore could not transfer the quota shares.

According to the respondents, since at present Airup and Poronai are the Russian legal entities, in respect of which no conclusions have been issued by FAS, there are no grounds for applying the restrictive measures. That corresponds the norms of the law No. 57 dated April 29.2008 "On the procedure for making foreign investments in economic entities of strategic importance for ensuring the country's defence and state security".

The Arbitration Court of the Sakhalin region has refused to satisfy the FAS’s claim in full.