DAGESTAN CONSTRUCTION COMPANIES ARE GUILTY OF TAKING PART IN A CARTEL

The total sum of the contracts concluded by the cartel members was around 8 billion RUB

On 12 November 2018, the Commission of the Federal Antimonopoly Service recognized that”Mostootryad-99” JSC, “Dorstroiotryad-99” Ltd., “Dormost” Scientific Production Association” Ltd. and “Burbau” Ltd. are guilty of concluding and implementing an anticompetitive agreement that resulted in maintaining prices at auctions for construction, repair and maintenance of roads and bridges in Dagestan (violating Clause 2 Part 1 Article 11 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”).

As a result of cartel operations, the price reduction in the course of 58 auctions organized by the Ministry of Transport of the Dagestan Republic and “Makhachkala  Housing-and-Community Utilities” Municipal Public Institution was minimal.

Head of FAS Anti-Cartel Department, Andrey Tenishev pointed out: “Indirect cartel evidence include, in particular, written communications between company staff, the same IP addresses for filing auction bids and for using a “remote bank” system, powers of attorney for digital signatures, issued to the same persons”.

The antimonopoly case was opened in July 2018 upon the findings of joint inspections by the antimonopoly and law enforcement bodies in Dagestan.

In August Dagestan Investigation Department of the Ministry of Interior opened a criminal case upon signs of a crime specified in Clauses “a”, “c” Part 2 Article 178 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation: “Restricting Competition”.

The materials of antimonopoly investigation will be forwarded to Dagestan Investigation Department of the Ministry of Interior to enter into the records of the criminal case.

“The construction sector is the leader by the number of cartels and losses incurred by the budget. We have already exposed violations in this sector in 64 regions of Russia and, unfortunately, Dagestan is not an exception here”, summed up the Commission Chair, Stats-Secretary, Deputy Head of FAS Andrey Tsarikovskiy.