FAS uncovers 621 million ruble cartel in medical equipment supply in Kaliningrad region

The antimonopoly case was opened in November 2024. The department's attention was drawn to nine purchases of medical equipment that took place from March 17, 2022 to August 27, 2024 - X-ray machines, angiograph, MRI, ultrasound machines, infusion systems for the needs of the Kaliningrad Regional Clinical Hospital, regional oncology dispensary, dental clinic, central district and city hospitals, as well as City Multidisciplinary Hospital No. 2 in St. Petersburg.

As the FAS found out, in the tenders that came into the agency’s focus, the reduction in the initial maximum contract price was either 0% or 0.58% (on average 0.45%), compared to 28.84% in other purchases for the purchase of medical equipment and 15.77% in the event that other players entered the tender.

The investigation revealed that the companies used a single infrastructure to submit applications. Often, one company would submit a commercial proposal to participate in a competition, and another would enter the competition instead. In addition, the distributors subsidized each other with interest-free loans from 2021 to 2024 and had common employees. Thus, the development director of Alma-Med worked under a civil-law contract at Makrus, and the general director of Makrus held the position of general director at Alma-Med in 2019-2020.

The companies denied collusion, telling the FAS that they financed each other's activities on mutual terms without additional requirements, since it was "necessary for the supply of expensive medical equipment." They also insisted that they did not participate jointly in procurement procedures and did not compete in tenders.

Nevertheless, the FAS Commission found both companies guilty of concluding an anticompetitive agreement that led to maintaining unreasonably high prices at auctions. Legal entities face a turnover fine of up to 50% of the initial maximum contract price under Article 14.32 of the Code of Administrative Offenses, and their managers face criminal prosecution. The case materials have been transferred to law enforcement agencies for further procedural decisions.

According to SPARK-Interfax, Alma-Med LLC was registered in St. Petersburg in 2017, initially as Petrokhleb Invest. Since June 2024, the company has belonged to Olga Polina. Until 2013, Polina owned a 50% stake in Makrus. In 2024, Alma-Med earned 42.3 million rubles, with a loss of 10.1 million rubles. In turn, St. Petersburg-based Makrus LLC is owned on a parity basis by Anatoly Isaev and Anastasia Batanova. Isaev was briefly the sole beneficiary of Alma-Med LLC from 2019 to 2020. The company's revenue for the past year amounted to 47.8 million rubles, net profit - 2.7 million rubles.

The FAS pays special attention to potential restrictions on competition in socially significant markets. In May 2025, the agency suspected three distributors of collusion in the supply of consumables and medical instruments throughout Russia. The total volume of purchases under investigation is estimated at 1.214 billion rubles. Among the defendants in the case are the capital's OOO Focus, OOO Otrimed and OOO Extravision, which supplied consumables for ophthalmology, including to the S.P. Botkin MMNC of the Moscow Department of Health.