Press Release, August 29, 2013

YABLOKO’s Anticoruption Centre did not allow the Arbitration Court of the Pskov Region to buy an expensive foreign car. After the complaint sent by YABLOKO leader Sergei Mitrokhin to the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) Department, the tender on the delivery of a posh car was cancelled.

Earlier, the Arbitration Court of the Pskov Region had published (at the state purchases web-site) information on the tender for delivery of a car for 2.7 million roubles. Only one car – Toyota Land Cruiser 150 (Prado) Prestige Plus – met the requirements of the tender. Thus, the customer violated the law by deliberate limiting of the number of potential participants in the tender and establishing requirements for the product that did not allow other participants of the tender to offer an equivalent product.

After this Lev Shlosberg, YABLOKO Bureau member and Editor-in-Chief of the Guberniya paper, asked YABLOKO Anticorruption Center to investigate this case of abuse. After an investigation YABLOKO lawyers revealed violations and sent a complaint to the FAS. The newspaper connects this abuse with a recent appointment of Vladimir Bulgakov, Vladimir Putin’s University class-mate, Chief Justice of the court. Earlier judges of the Arbitration Court of the Pskov Region had managed to work without luxurious cars.

YABLOKO’s Anticorruption Centre has been conducting total monitoring of procurement of expensive cars for the state bodies. Purchase of such cars is not legally restricted to a particular amount , thus the Anticorruption Centre challenges only those auctions that demonstrate that only a particular brand of car corresponds to the tender requirements.