By Gabriele Steinhauser
BRUSSELS--The European Union's competition regulator plans to
file formal antitrust charges against Russia's state-owned gas
company OAO Gazprom on Wednesday, a person familiar with the matter
said on Monday, a step set to escalate the standoff between Europe
and Moscow.
The European Commission started a formal investigation into
Gazprom's business practices in some eastern and southern European
countries in 2012, saying that it suspected the company of abusing
its dominant position in those countries' natural-gas supply. The
bloc's competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, said in
February that she was ready to file formal charges against Gazprom
"relatively short time span."
A person familiar with the commission's case against Gazprom
said that the charge sheet, known as a statement of objections,
against the company has been put on the agenda of the commission
meeting on Wednesday and that no resistance was expected.
A spokesman for Ms. Vestager declined to comment.
Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov couldn't immediately be
reached for comment.
A person familiar with Gazprom said that the company had
signaled its willingness to settle the case to the commission as
recently as last week. Formal settlement talks broke down last year
after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine.
With the planned charges, Ms. Vestager is escalating another
antitrust case against a major company in a big country just one
week after the commission filed formal charges against U.S.-based
Google Inc. The case against Gazprom could potentially result in
multibillion euro penalties against the company.
The commission has treaded carefully with regards to the Gazprom
case over the past year, amid concerns that moving ahead with
charges could make it more difficult to reach a diplomatic solution
with Moscow over its actions in eastern Ukraine.
But when Ms. Vestager took office in November she said that she
would take a fresh look at the case and not be steered by political
considerations. At the same time, progress on the Minsk Agreement,
the EU's peace plan for Ukraine, has been slow, indicating that a
resolution of the broader conflict is likely still some time
off.
Gazprom is the EU's biggest outside supplier of natural gas,
with some countries in the Baltics and southeast Europe relying
entirely on shipments from the Russian company. When the commission
opened its formal investigation into Gazprom's practices 2 1/2
years ago, it said that suspected the company of unfair behavior in
three areas.
First, the commission has been examining whether Gazprom is
preventing some countries from re-exporting gas that they bought
from the company, a practice called "market partitioning."
The commission has also been investigating whether Gazprom has
tied some aspects of its contract with customers--such as the price
it charges for gas--for cooperating on other business areas,
including the building of new pipelines. That is known as "market
foreclosure."
Finally, the commission has been looking into Gazprom's practice
of tying the price it charges for gas to international oil
prices.
Gazprom and EU competition regulators had come quite close to
settling the first two elements of the case before talks stopped
last year, according to people familiar with the investigation. A
lot less progress had been made on the oil-price link--partly
because other gas companies have pursued a similar pricing
policy--and experts have questions regarding whether the commission
would be able to build a case against Gazprom on that front.
The person familiar with the commission's case didn't say on
what parts of the investigation charges would be filed on
Wednesday.
James Marson in Moscow and Tom Fairless in Brussels contributed
to this article.
Write to Gabriele Steinhauser at
gabriele.steinhauser@wsj.com
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