Publishing house “Prosveshchenie” faces a fine for violating antimonopoly laws

The FAS identified signs of monopolistic high prices for textbooks at the Prosveshchenie publishing house. A case has been opened against the company for violating antimonopoly laws, and it faces a fine of up to 1 million rubles. Market participants believe that Prosveshchenie will be able to resolve the claims, since there is no alternative large manufacturer of educational literature on the market. They explain the rise in prices by increased printing costs and production costs.

The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) found in the work of the Prosveshcheniye publishing house signs of establishing monopoly high prices for school textbooks, it follows from messages service published April 10. FAS analyzed the publisher’s income and expenses, financial results, prices and volumes of textbooks sold. Claims arose against publications on history, biology and the Russian language.

A case has been opened against the publishing house for violating antimonopoly laws. The company faces an administrative fine in accordance with the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation. The message clarifies that this is a violation of Part 1 of Art. 10 of the Law “On Protection of Competition”: establishing and maintaining a monopolistically high or monopolistically low price for a product. According to it, the company faces a fine of 300 thousand to 1 million rubles.

Prosveshcheniye knows about the initiation of an antimonopoly case, “but until now, no official documents have been sent from the service to the company.”

A representative of the company assured that the publishing house is ready to provide the FAS with all the necessary information indicating that the organization’s actions do not violate antimonopoly legislation.

Since 2020, textbook pricing has been under state supervision, Prosveshchenie emphasizes. The publishing house is included by the FAS in the register of business entities that occupy a dominant position in the market: “In order to ensure the availability of educational literature, we have developed and are implementing an antimonopoly compliance system since 2021.”

In September 2023, Chairman of the Federation Council Valentina Matvienko called for an investigation into the sharp rise in prices for textbooks and the Enlightenment monopoly on the market. She said that on the eve of the school year, prices for textbooks in the regions increased by one and a half times. Prosveshchenie, in particular, printed most of the new textbooks on general history and Russian history for 10th and 11th grades, which were presented last year. It was planned to sell them at a price of 849 rubles.

“Prosveshcheniye” is a publishing house under the full control of the state represented by state corporations, says Vladimir Kharitonov, technical director of the Freedom Letters publishing house. He adds that the publishing house sells textbooks to the state, and those that are approved by the Ministry of Education: “That is, they are already a monopoly.” He believes that the publishing house “will come to an agreement with the antimonopoly service and will not end up with a fine.”

The increase in prices for publications can be explained by an increase in printing costs and other production costs, according to a Kommersant source in the media market. In his opinion, by the end of the year, textbooks will rise in price by another 10%.

The conflict between Prosveshcheniye and the FAS will not affect the market, believes Kommersant’s interlocutor close to one of the publishing houses: “Yes, perhaps inspections of other companies will follow. But “Prosveshcheniye” is responsible for the production of educational literature, and so far there are no alternatives with the same capacity on the market.”

Yulia Yurasova