Court confirmed collusion in procurement of polymer pipes

Moscow Arbitration Court dismissed a claim filed by participants of an anticompetitive agreement that challenged a decision of the antimonopoly body.

The lawsuit to invalidate and abolish FAS decision was filed by: “Polymerteplo Group” Ltd., “UNP – 524 Polymerteplo” Ltd., “St Petersburg Fuel-and-Energy Complex” State Unitary Enterprise, “Special Truck Fleet for Sanitation and Cleaning Service in Khabarovsk” JSC and “Ryazan Municipal Heat Netwroks Enterprise”.

At the end of 2015 the antimonopoly body found that the above companies as well as “Nenetsky Utility Company” State Unitary Enterprise of the Nenetsky Autonomous District concluded an anticompetitive agreement (Part 4 Article 11 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”).

The purpose of the agreement was to ensure that “Polymerteplo Group” Ltd. and “UNP – 524 Polymerteplo” Ltd. would be the winners. For instance, announcing procurement of polymer pipes, the ordering parties agreed in advance with those companies on preparing technical assignments by the procurement participants to prevent other economic entities winning. If the bids of “Polymerteplo Group” Ltd. or “UNP – 524 Polymerteplo” Ltd. contained any mistakes, the government customers did not reject it and simply indicated the mistakes and accepted the documents after the deadline.

“At the time of committing the violation all government customers – state and municipal unitary enterprises procured under the “framework” No.223 FZ Federal Law. It once again confirmed that state and municipal companies must move to electronic procedures in accord with the Law on contractual system”, said Stats-Secretary, Deputy Head of FAS Andrey Tsarikovskiy.