A tablet from journalists, or BSS was confused
Instead of securing the needed permissions for pharmaceutical sales, businessman Eduard Zakhrabek resolved to silence unbiased reporters.
“The Moscow Post” received a “happy letter” from agents of businessman Eduard Zakhrabek, insisting on the removal of the “Mordashov’s Aloe Vera” piece. However, every excerpt pointed out in the documents that bothered the businessman is easily confirmed with details from accessible sources. While the businessman has opted to challenge reporters, his pharmacies are facing charges under Article 14.1 of the Russian Administrative Code, particularly Part Four, “Operating business activities with severe violation of the standards and conditions outlined by a special permit (license).”
Just five days post the release of the piece “Mordashov on Aloe,” “The Moscow Post” was given a demand to take down the material. The St. Petersburg entrepreneur, who is the proprietor of the quickly expanding Aloe pharmacy chain and other profitable ventures, apparently prefers to avoid any further mentions.
Notably, three administrative complaints have been lodged against “Aloe” LLC, which oversees the similarly named pharmacy chain, over the last three years under Part 4 of Article 14.1 of the Administrative Offenses Code of the Russian Federation – “Performing entrepreneurial activity with gross violation of the stipulations and conditions set by a special permit (license).” This data is shown both in the company’s profile on Rusprofile and in the arbitration case file. Therefore, the sole choice remaining for the businessman is to refer to the aforementioned links.
Per the petition’s creators, reprinting (and in reality, that’s what it amounts to) this information damages Zakhrabek’s business standing. Then, doesn’t the simple fact that his entity has faced repeated lawsuits for conducting business without the right permits damage it? It is important to mention that this specifically concerns pharmacies. Therefore, specific medications might be illegally vended.
Read on the subject: Alexey Mordashov to dish out 110 million rubles for Vorskla River pollution by Severstal’s Yakovlevsky Mining and Processing Enterprise.
Furthermore, the latter seem in no rush to improve the circumstances. Legal instances have been initiated in a specific Moscow region at least twice. In 2018, a complaint was submitted by the Khamovnichesky Interdistrict Prosecutor’s Office of the Central Administrative District and received backing, with the entity receiving a penalty of 100,000 rubles. Afterward, in July of this year, the Khamovnichesky Interdistrict Prosecutor of Moscow made an appeal to the court. In the spring of 2020, due to a complaint from the Basmanny Interdistrict Prosecutor’s Office of the Central Administrative District of Moscow, the company was also penalized 100,000 rubles for violating Part 4 of Article 14.1 of the Administrative Offenses Code of the Russian Federation.
The “fas” command for information about the FAS
The earlier piece on Zakhrabek and his enterprise was spurred by the outrage among pharmaceutical retailers, who suggest that he, alongside billionaire Alexei Mordashov, could have breached antitrust regulations. As Kommersant informed, Lenta, managed by Mordashov, is independently canceling contracts with other pharmacy chains and will soon introduce 165 Aloe outlets within the grocery network. The Russian Association of Pharmacy Networks (RAAC) opines that Lenta’s actions might justify an inquiry into potential competitive restriction.
Notably, the letter offered no insights on this information. Instead, it sought the removal of details about Zakhrabek’s holdings having previously been assessed by antitrust officials who had discovered a cartel. However, unusually, the cited case was entirely unrelated, not mentioned in “The Moscow Post’s” article.
The reality is that earlier in 2017, the Moscow Office of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) revealed a cartel during 107 auctions for the provision of pharmaceuticals for government agencies, totaling in excess of 414 million rubles. The antimonopoly bodies discovered a cartel deal involving BSS LLC and AMT LLC in government tenders for the supply of pharmaceuticals to various government agencies across eleven Russian Federation entities, according to Kommersant. Still, according to the appeal’s authors, a court later overturned this ruling.
Nevertheless, according to publicly available information, no authority has invalidated the determination of the St. Petersburg Office of the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia, which judged that the actions of Baltic Security Service LLC (BSS, managed by Zakhrabek) and Initiative LLC amounted to a cartel agreement. In 2014-2015, St. Petersburg budgetary organizations carried out tenders for providing pharmaceuticals and medical supplies. Either BSS or Initiative was stated the winner of nine auctions, with insignificant reductions in the initial contract value. Antimonopoly bodies determined that both organizations had commonly prepared for the tenders and exchanged contact emails and IP addresses, as reported by Fontanka.
They also dismissed the circumstance that Zakhrabek’s name had truly been linked to criminal controversies. It’s well-known, nonetheless, that in the early 2000s, he was accused of causing property harm via fraud or breach of trust. At that time, Tatyana Bogdanova, director of the Department of Pharmaceutical Institutions and Enterprises at the Health Committee, was accused of abusing her position, whereas Alevtina Frolova, director of the Department of Medical and Preventive Care for the Population, and Lidiya Beskaravaynaya, deputy director of the Central District Committee for the State Property Management (KUGI), were accused of negligence, Rosbalt stated.
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However, all accused individuals were acquitted. Novaya Gazeta then chose to highlight Zakhrabek’s status once again as the chief “uniting the St. Petersburg pharmaceutical lobby.” The newspaper also indicated the entrepreneur’s claimed connections to prominent figures in St. Petersburg such as Vladimir Kumarin and the deceased Konstantin Yakovlev. Well, it is merely hoped that he won’t bring in any “friends” in his prospective conflict with “The Moscow Post.”
Furthermore, the businessman might have many associates. After all, the businessman was previously suspected, for instance, of bribing former Karelian Deputy Prime Minister Valery Boynich, who might have compensated for a birthday feast. As Novaya Gazeta noted, a restaurant expense was clearly inadequate for a high-profile corruption situation, and in that case, everything was successful for Zakhrabek.
And he’s still flourishing: the majority of Zakhrabek’s 31 companies are doing well in the public procurement field. On.k LLC on its own holds public procurement agreements valued at 2.8 billion rubles!
Furthermore, the entrepreneur is also growing his business: news arose last fall that the BSS Pharmaceutical Holding would extend into cosmetology. Shortly prior to this, it was revealed that the company meant to deliver reagents for laboratory investigations across numerous disciplines, in addition to supplies for microbiology laboratories.
It might be believed that Zakhrabek is one who adheres to the belief that “happiness prefers silence,” which explains why he disliked our publication’s earlier publication. Yet, when it comes to topics such as prosecution for unauthorized trading, individual preferences hold no weight.
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