MOSCOW, May 24 - RAPSI, Sergei Feklyunin. The justice system and lawmakers must develop a legal tool to prosecute firms violating antitrust legislation with the help of foreign companies, Supreme Commercial Court Chairman Anton Ivanov said on Thursday.

Many Russian companies use foreign firms to manipulate prices, he said at an international anti-trust conference, adding that it is hard to uncover the link between them and to prove collusion.

As an example, he mentioned the Angstrem case when a foreign company was used to spike prices in Russia. He also suggested his own criteria for identifying relations between companies.

"Let's assume that a foreign company, which has not yet been identified as the affiliated company, permanently sells goods to a Russian company at a price exceeding the average market price... In this case, we can conclude that the companies are affiliated," Ivanov said.

He added that such cooperation would by unreasonable from an economic point of view, while the price premium for importing goods may reach 50 to 100 percent for the buyer, excluding taxes and import fees.