The Ministry of Health Care of the Samara region and two companies are suspected of collusion

Samara OFAS opened a case upon signs of an anticompetitive agreement between “TsEKh – Zdorovie” Ltd. and “SMT” Ltd. [“Modern Medical Technologies”] (Clause 2 Part 1 Article 11 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”) and signes of restricting competition by the regional Health Care Ministry (Article 16 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”).

The case is based upon materials supplied from the Investigation Department of the Investigations Committee of the Russian Federation in the Samara region.

An open auction for technical maintenance and repair of expensive medical equipment took place in May 2016. The ordering parties at the auction were 22 state budget-funded health care institutions.

The initial contract price reduced insignificantly – by 2.5% of the total costs. The total costs reached over 4.25 billion RUB. The winner was “SMT” Ltd. that already started carrying out the works.

“TsEKh – Zdorovie” Ltd. also took part in the auction. According to the information available to the antimonopoly body, in March 2016 representatives of “SMT” Ltd.  и “TsEKh – Zdorovie” Ltd. had a meeting upon an initiative of the Ministry of Health Care to discuss some aspects of the forthcoming auction.

For instance, “SMT” Ltd. outlined the expected schemes of participating in the auction that would enable the company to win and proposed “TsEKh – Zdorovie” Ltd. to enter into subcontract agreements for up to 100 million RUB in return for not-participating in the auction and not complaining to FAS.

“TsEKh – Zdorovie” Ltd. did not file its bid. The arrangements between the Ministry and the companies resulted in maintaining the auction prices.

The Investigation Department of the Investigation Committee of the Russian Federation in the Samara Region opened a criminal case against Director and Deputy Director of “SMT” Ltd. upon signs of commercial bribery (Clause “a” Part 2 Article 204 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and against Deputy Minister of Health Care of the Samara Region upon signs of abuse of office (Part 1 Article 285 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The Court ruled to temporarily dismiss the official from the office until 25.08.2016. The property of all defendants in the case is arrested.

Earlier the Head of FAS Anti-Cartel Department, Andrey Tenishev, stated: “No other industry today is exposed to such a massive impact of anticompetitive practices”. He also emphasized that this case “is the result of system-wide efforts of the antimonopoly bodies on exposing violations in health care across the entire Russia as well as FAS cooperation with the law enforcement bodies”.