Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service, or FAS, said Thursday that Gazprom Neft has paid a Rb1.356 billion ($48 million) fine related to the first wave of antitrust violations the agency brought against four leading Russian oil companies in 2008.
Gazprom Neft contested the charge that it was involved in price fixing on the domestic oil products market, but withdraw its appeal to invalidate the case in December, FAS said in a statement.
After losing a final arbitration case in February, Gazprom Neft paid the fine for the first wave, a Gazprom Neft spokesman said.
Gazprom Neft was fined an additional Rb 4.7 billion ($165 million) in the second wave of fines in 2009, which has not been paid yet, the spokesman said.
In February, Gazprom Neft said it had made a $198 million provision for the FAS fines in the fourth quarter of 2010.
In 2008 and 2009, FAS fined Gazprom Neft, Rosneft, Lukoil and TNK-BP a total of Rb26.1 billion in two waves for antitrust violations on the domestic oil products market.
In 2010, Rosneft, Lukoil and TNK-BP admitted their guilt and negotiated their fines down, paying a total of around Rb5 billion, according to an earlier FAS statement.
On February 9, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin called for a reduction of domestic oil products prices and ordered FAS to investigate unjustified price increases for products.
FAS responded by announcing it had opened a third wave of cases against Gazprom Neft, Lukoil and Rosneft for new violations, and also singled out TNK-BP, Surgutneftegaz and Bashneft for possibly abusing their market positions.
Since then, retail or wholesale price reductions have been announced by many Russian oil companies, including Gazprom Neft, Rosneft, TNK-BP, Surgutneftegaz and Lukoil.
