On 17th April 2008, the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) initiated a case against the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian federation (Minobrnauka Russia) and «Goznak» Federal State Unitary Enterprise for violating Clause 3 Article 16 of the Federal Law «On Protection of Competition».
FAS Russia believes that Minobrnauka Russia (the legal successor of the Russian Ministry of Education), responsible for developing national policy and regulations of education, and «Goznak» FSUE violated the law by making a decision on using the Orlov printing technology for pattering pages 1 and 4 in the Diplomas [Degree certificates] of the Higher Vocational Education, which is formalized in Clause 3 of the Protocol of the session of the Russian Ministry of Education of 15th May 2002 on defining the main parameters of the forms of new Diplomas [Degree certificates] of higher and secondary vocational education. Currently the Protocol is valid only for the main parameters of the forms of Diplomas [Degree certificates] of Higher Vocational Education for 2007-2008 academic year.
The decision of Minobrnauka Russia and «Goznak» FSUE on using the Orlov printing technology for pattering pages 1 and 4 in the Diplomas [Degree certificates] of Higher Vocational Education, formalized in Clause 3 of the Protocol, eliminates competition on the market of manufacturing fraud-proof printing products (»À» level protection).
The case will be heard on 22 May 2008.
