On April 1, 2014, Liniya Prava succeeded in having a Decision and Order of the antimonopoly authority for the north Caucasus on the alleged imposition of loan repayment through annuity payments by Sberbank of Russia to its borrowers overturned and invalidated by the Arbitrazh Court for the Rostov Region of Russia.
In 2012 the FAS Department for the Rostov Region had ruled that Sberbank had violated point 1, part 1, section 10 of the federal “On Protection of Competition” law, which prohibits imposing unfair contractual terms. The antimonopoly authority's decision was supported by the court of first instance and on appeal. Liniya Prava lawyers, supported by economists Vadim Novikov and Svetlana Avlasheva and other experts, succeeded in persuading the Arbitrazh Court to annul the decisions of the lower courts, and call for reconsideration of the case by the FAS Department for the North Caucasian Region.
Liniya Prava Senior Lawyer Alexey Kostarov, who represented Sberbank before the Arbitrazh Court along with Partner Dmitriy Chepurenko, called the court's decision "lawful and rather natural.” Kostarov explained that, "allegations against Sberbank of Russia do not have any legal grounds," and that "unfortunately, as it often happens, the antimonopoly authority showed a formalized approach and did not even try to investigate the actual commercial backbone of the relationships. Therefore, dealing with some really complicated aspects was a real challenge for the courts. However, we did not have any doubt that, in the end, we would manage to successfully represent the interests of our client again, from illegal claims made by the antimonopoly authority. This case is another example of the efficiency shown by the combination of legal expertise and economic review in consideration of antimonopoly cases.”
