ARMENIA: INVESTIGATION INTO ABUSE OF MONOPOLY BY SCR

Railway Market
November 7, 2008 Friday

An investigation is being carried out by a state regulatory body into
the legality of the sudden sharp rise in the price of transporting
freight in the country, which was introduced at the beginning of July
2008. The railway network was recently renamed the South Caucasus
Railway (SCR), following the takeover by Russian state railway
operator RZD of its operations at the beginning of 2008. One of the
many companies affected by the rise in freight fees submitted an appeal
to the State Commission on the Protection of Economic Competition, and
an investigation is now taking place into a suspected abuse of SCR’s
monopoly. A representative of one company affected by the increase
stated that since the increase in fees, the cost of re-directing
a rail car at a station in the country had gone up from between AMD
2,500 (EUR 6.5 USD 8.24) and AMD 3,000, to AMD 18,000.