Russian FAS opened a case against the online real estate service CIAN

The Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) found a violation of law in the actions of the popular online real estate database CIAN (ЦИАН), expressed in an incorrect comparison with similar resources provided by competitors.

The Moscow FAS brought a case against CIAN for failure to comply with their warning within the prescribed period, according to their official website.

As they reported, “Earlier we saw signs of violation of antitrust laws in the actions of CIAN, expressed in the incorrect comparison of their real estate search service with similar resources from competitors. The offending content was approved and circulated on the internet, creating the impression of its superiority. The capital’s antimonopoly authority issued a warning with a demand to remove the violation within 10 days. CIAN ignored the warning and continued to share incorrect information.”

The case was initiated on the grounds of violation of Paragraph 1 of Article 14.3 of the law “On protection of competition” (comparison with a competitor using the words “best”, “first”, “most”, “only” and others, creating the impression of the superiority of the product). CIAN faces a fine of 100,000 to 500,000 rubles. The case is scheduled for August 9.

It was not specified what kind of “comparison” FAS deemed incorrect. Perhaps the antimonopolists were confused by statement on the website that “CIAN GROUP is the leader of online real estate in Russia” , as well “Cian.ru – a reliable database for the sale and leasing of residential, suburban and commercial real estate.”

This isn’t the first time FAS has found signs of unfair competition in the actions of CIAN. In February, the FAS issued a warning to the CIAN in connection with reports that CIAN had copied ads from the website “Avito” and used them for itself.

Translated from https://roskomsvoboda.org/40648/