MOSCOW, January 23 - RAPSI, Alyona Yegorova. A commercial court will hear on January 26 Gazprom’s lawsuit challenging the antitrust watchdog’s resolution that it broke competition law while conducting the bidding to place its exchange-traded bonds, the Russian Legal Information Agency (RAPSI/rapsinews.com) reports from the courtroom.

The Federal Antimonopoly Service declared in September that Gazprom violated competition law during an open bidding for contracts on its bonds placement, the watchdog’s resolution reads.

Gazprom summed up the bidding results in April 2010. Renaissance Capital and Gazprombank were granted the mandate to place its bonds amounting to 300 billion rubles ($9.6 billion) – the largest borrowing program on the Russian market.

The antitrust authority has established that Gazprom unlawfully overstated the importance of an aspect of the bids appraisal, thus giving preference to an inferior bid.

MICEX registered the Gazprom bonds issues in August.

Gazprom's charter capital is 118.368 billion rubles ($3.8 billion), divided into 23.674 billion common shares with a par value five rubles. More than 50 percent of Gazprom shares are held by the state.