Russia LUKOIL, Rosneft face new anti-trust fines

MOSCOW, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Russia's anti-monopoly service plans to slap new large fines on the country's two largest oil producers, Rosneft (ROSN.MM) and LUKOIL (LKOH.MM), the head of the service said on Tuesday.

"Today decisions will be taken to impose fines on oil firms Rosneft and LUKOIL. They will be big," Igor Artemiyev told a news conference.

Last year, the service slapped fines on all major Russian oil firms for oil products price fixing amounting to around $50 million per company but oil firms have won court rulings overturning the decisions.

This year, the service ruled that LUKOIL and Rosneft violated anti-trust legislation and imposed combined fines of over $300 million on their peers, TNK-BP (TNBPI.RTS) and Gazprom Neft (SIBN.MM).

The companies have said they would appeal the rulings and it remains unclear whether they paid the fines.

The service, known as the FAS, has recently been transformed from something of a paper tiger after Russia adopted a package of legislation which significantly beefed up its powers.

To read a column about FAS click on [ID:nLM157232] (Reporting by Yekaterina Golubkova, writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov, Editing by David Cowell)