As a general rule, income from any activity of state or municipal educational institution shall be used by it in accordance with the statutory objectives, i.e. for organization and provision of educational process.
5. Is there any case-law on the applicability of competition law to activities of HEIs?
Strictly speaking, there is. Although it probably should be a matter of the activity of education and HEI related authorities, not of the activity of HEIs themselves.
Private HEIs, which are licensed by the Ministry of Education or – later – by Ministry of Education and Science, have the same rights as state-operated ones. Ministry occasionally issues acts that limit competition in higher education that impair the rights of private HEIs, in comparison, for example with Moscow State University. In such cases private institutions send the requirements to check such acts to Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS). For example, in practice, as a result of the adoption of certain regulations which are issued by former Ministry of Education or the Ministry of Education and Science, it turns out that private educational institutions may participate in the competition for government grants and funds, but even if they win, they can not get budget money, because the Law “On Education” and the Budget Code contain certain amendments that do not allow to provide private institutions with such grants and funds. FAS responds to such appeals, explaining the contents of Article. 15 of the Law “On Protection of Competition”. This article prohibits to limiting competition in governmental, ministerial and departmental decisions.
Such decisions are contained in the Protocol №4 of the Expert Council of the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russian Federation on the development of competition in education and science dated 4 June 2007, Protocol №6 of the Expert Council of the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russian Federation on the development of competition in education and science dated 29 April 2008. Amendments to the RF Law “On education” and the Federal Law “On Higher and Postgraduate Professional Education” based on these decisions were drafted and referred to the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Economic Development of Russian Federation for further joint elaboration and introduction to the Government of Russian Federation.