Russian antitrust officials order nation’s biggest textbook supplier to pay 2 billion rubles for ‘monopolistically high prices’

Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service has ordered the country’s largest publisher of educational literature to pay the state more than 2 billion rubles ($20.6 million) for charging “monopolistically high prices” on Russian language, history, and biology textbooks. 

Officials say Prosveshcheniye’s recent price increases “exceeded growth in production and distribution costs,” leading to “profitability growth that significantly surpassed the industry average.” Meanwhile, the company argues that it’s provided the government with data showing it hasn’t violated antitrust laws.

Prosveshcheniye was fully state-owned until it was acquired in 2011 by the Olma Media Group with financial backing from billionaire and longtime Putin associate Arkady Rotenberg.