Lithuanian Competition Watchdog Slaps Gazprom with a $50 Million Fine

Lithuania's Competition Council has fined Russia’s Gazprom a $50.2 million following a 2012 investigation into Lietuvos Energijos Gamyba's (Lithuanian Energy Production) bid to conclude a natural gas swap deal with the Russian gas giant. 

The competition watchdog’s experts found that Gazprom’s refusal to negotiate with the Lithuanian company on a natural gas swap deal for 2013-2015 prevented the Lithuanian company from purchasing cheaper gas from another supplier and thus breached a condition of a 2004 agreement on the acquisition and sale of shares in Lietuvos Dujos.

“This possibly led to negative consequences for Lithuanian electricity and heat consumers as prices of electricity and heat energy produced by Lietuvos Energija possibly increased due to Gazprom’s more expensive natural gas,” the authority said in a statement on Tuesday.

The fine comes at a time when the European Commission is about to complete its probe into Gazprom’s unfair pricing practices in Lithuania and other Eastern European countries and when a Stockholm arbitration court is hearing a 4.5-billion-litas ($1.8 billlion) suit filed by the Lithuanian government against the Russian gas monopoly, which in early May cut the gas price for Lietuvos Dujos (Lithuanian Gas) by 20%.