Report: Russian service suspects HP, Lenovo of bulling local dealers

MOSCOW, Nov 23 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service has suspected the U.S.’ Hewlett-Packard (HP) and China’s Lenovo of having exerted pressure on local dealers in deliveries of electronics for state needs, the authority’s Deputy Director Andrei Tsarikovsky said late Tuesday in a broadcast of the Rossiya 24 television channel.

Purchases of computers for the Central Election Commission are in focus, Tsarikovsky said.

The antimonopoly service started checking HP, Lenovo and other companies, totaling over 10 units, earlier in November on suspicions of their involvement in a cartel.

“First, there was no trading at a huge tender. The biggest thing they did was one step down (in prices), and then there was no trading, which was weird. Second, local manufacturers, whose prices always have a (15%) bonus by law in comparison to those of foreign companies, abstained from the tender,” Tsarikovsky said.

“When we looked at such behavior, we got interested. We initiated an investigation. During the course of it we became suspicious whether a certain behavior had been enforced on our dealers or not. HP and Lenovo attracted our attention first."

“A number of tricks are well-known: (dealers) are said that they would not take part in a tender, though they should, or they’d have problems with goods delivery and would run a risk of dissolving a contract, or on the contrast, you should take part in another tender to get perks and bonuses. These are standard ways of pressure on our dealers. It makes no secret that they’re used everywhere from automobiles to pharmaceuticals.”

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