The Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation supports NLMK's actions

The Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation upheld previous court decisions to cancel the decision of the Federal Antimonopoly Service, which confirmed the involvement of Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant in the application of unreasonable prices for transformer steel for Russian buyers.

At the end of January 2011, a commission of the Federal Antimonopoly Service established that from August 2009 to December 2010, two companies NLMK and VIZ Stal raised prices for transformer steels. At the same time, the prices they set for Russian customers were almost 50 percent higher than prices in foreign markets with a more competitive environment.

The service concluded that NLMK's actions could limit competition in the electrical steel market. The Antimonopoly Commission subsequently instructed NLMK to remedy the violation of antimonopoly laws by setting the price of transformer steel from 0.23 mm to 0.5 mm in thickness at the level of the weighted average export price for these products for the previous month.

Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant and VIZ Steel have appealed the decision of the Federal Antimonopoly Service in court. NLMK is a vertically integrated company representing every stage of steel production: from mining to the final stages of steel processing and distribution.