Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Federal Antimonopoly Service keeps collecting evidence for the upcoming court hearing of UralTransBank and Bank Severnaya Kazna’s case; the two companies are accused of violating the antimonopoly legislation.


'Our division is now busy piecing together all the customers’ complaints about overpriced insurance tariffs these banks imposed on their loans,’ Deputy Head of Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Federal Antimonopoly Service Sergei Volkov said to UrBC.


The Service claimed UralTransBank and Bank Severnaya Kazna violated the Federal Competition Protection Act by signing agreements with a number of certain insurers, which, the Service says, can result in limited competition on the insurance services market.


The two banks will now have to undergo a court trial (both businesses have been charged with violating the Federal Competition Protection Act (Article 11)) in December 2007. The first court hearing was supposed to have taken place in November but was then postponed because additional evidence was needed.


Mr. Volkov notes the fact that customers did complain about the tariffs could serve as some implicit proof of the existence of an illegitimate arrangement.