Suppliers of fire equipment sanctioned for bid rigging

Office for the Protection of Competition (hereinafter referred to as “the Office”) imposed by its first instance decision fines of CZK 972,000 on undertakings Perpekta, spol. s.r.o a Požární bezpečnost s.r.o. for breaching the Act on the Protection of Competition.

Mentioned undertakings coordinated their bids submitted within the public procurement award procedures for supply of fire and rescue technology. The object of the conduct was the restriction of competition in the sector of supply of fire and rescue technology and equipment.

The collusion was conducted in autumn 2013 within the award procedures for supplies of special vests and technology for illumination. The contracting authorities were entities from public and private sector.  

The correspondence gathered by the Office proves that the undertaking Požární bezpoečnost was sending emails to undertakings Perspekta with requests for submission of competitive bid within mentioned award procedures. Emails included also documents, so called cover bids with stated prices and the undertaking Perspekta used these bids when participating in the award procedures.  

Anticompetitive behavior has been prohibited to both undertakings. At the same time the fine of CZK 824,000 has been imposed on the undertaking Požární bezpečnost and the fine of CZK 148,000 has been imposed on the undertakings Perspekta. Mentioned sanctions were lowered by 20 % as both parties to the proceedings applied for the settlement procedure. Consequently the three years ban to participate in public procurement award procedures has not been applied due to the settlement procedure.  

Prohibited agreements among bidders, so called bid rigging, constitute agreements seeking to influence the outcome of public competition and of award procedures through pre-agreed participation or non-participation of certain undertakings or through content aligned submission of bids (in particular as regards the prices included in bids). The object of such agreements is to provide the impression of real and fair competition among bidders when the contracting authority has only limited possibilities to detect the anticompetitive conduct which is in contrary to the sense and benefits of the award procedure, in particular the competitive lower price of the contract. Mentioned type of agreements combines several anticompetitive elements mainly price arrangements and sharing of customers (market sharing respectively) therefore one of the most serious competition infringements.

International and External Relations