Sincere confession

Refusal of agreements between banks and insurers is becoming widespread

Not only insurers, but also banks went to the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) to admit to the existence of agreements limiting competition. As you know, last week Rosgosstrakh announced the existence of agreements with branches of three banks in the Voronezh region, as well as the termination of these agreements. Yesterday, a statement about the existence of agreements with insurance companies was received from the bank. Rosbank reported to the FAS about its participation in agreements with 13 insurance companies that had the right to insure the bank's borrowers at rates agreed with it. The bank terminated these agreements unilaterally and, together with nine insurers, reported this to the FAS.

Rosbank made a voluntary statement about the existence of agreements limiting competition, the FAS said in a statement. The agreements provided for coordination with insurers of tariffs for insuring Rosbank borrowers under car lending, consumer and mortgage lending programs. This is considered a violation of competition law and may be punishable by a fine of 1-15% of the revenue from the business in respect of which the agreements were concluded.

“After the Law “On the Protection of Competition” came into force, we were faced with the opinion of representatives of the territorial divisions of the FAS that the bank’s approval of tariffs applied by the insurer has the potential to limit competition,” explained the press service of Rosbank. But, according to bank representatives, monitoring of insurance company tariffs was carried out solely to ensure their compliance with market insurance conditions.

“Taking into account the risk of significant fines being applied to insurance companies that are partners of the bank, we decided to make changes to the cooperation agreements. The bank, together with nine insurance companies (IC Soglasie, ROSNO, VSK, GSK Yugoria, Rosgosstrakh, Neftepolis, Ingosstrakh, MAX, NASTA) filed a statement about this with the antimonopoly service,” they said in Rosbank. The bank did not comment on the question of how the situation will affect insurance contracts for clients concluded during the validity of agreements with insurers.

But even if the agreements did not provide for price collusion, the very fact of their existence is already considered a violation that can lead to a restriction of competition, the FAS believes. For example, one of the banks - partners of Rosgosstrakh, which also terminated the agreement with the banks, reported that these documents did not provide for price collusion. “The bank’s policy does not provide for the provision of privileges to any of the insurers. The bank does not have agreements with any of them establishing fixed or maximum tariffs that could be applied by them when insuring property pledged as collateral,” said Andrey Khandruev, deputy chairman of the board of Gazenergoprombank.

The decision on whether to release insurers from liability for collusion with banks will be made by the FAS based on the results of the consideration of the case of violation of antimonopoly legislation.

Elena KHUTORNYKH