ST PETERESBURG OFAS DISCLOSED A “HOLIDAY” CARTEL INVOVLING DISTRICT AUTHORITIES
St Petersburg OFAS made decisions on two cases involving companies, individual entrepreneurs and authorities of three Districts of St Petersburg.
Investigating the case, the Commission of St Petersburg OFAS established that “Alliance” Ltd., “Perfect” Ltd., “Status” Ltd., “Zhemchuzhina” Production Centre” Ltd., “Sodruzhestvo” Ltd. and two individual entrepreneurs in 2015 - 2018 concluded cartel agreements and shared between themselves 27 auctions for organizing festivities in Frunzensky, Nevsky and Krasnogvardeisky Districts.
The total sum of the auctions reached nearly 110 million RUB. It was also established that the above entities and individual entrepreneurs filed applications from the same IP addresses. The applications also specified the same contact phone numbers and electronic addresses.
Investigating the second case, St Petersburg OFAS found that anticompetitive agreements were concluded between the companies “Perfect”, “Alliance”, “Sodruzhestvo” and “Status”) as well as the companies and the authorities of the Frunzensky, Nevsky and Krasnogvardeisky Districts, that had chosen contractors without competitive bidding.
Based on the results of their collusion, four companies shares the contracts for organizing seven festivities between themselves and fixed the same prices: 3 million RUB each: concerts to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Great October Revolution – “We are together a century on”, to mark the Day of Knowledge – “Festival generous for smiles and flowers” and the Day of Russian Guard – “Serve Russia – to be Proud of and Honoured ”, etc.
According to the case materials, all events were organized in a facility outside the Frunzensky, Nevsky and Krasnogvardeisky Districts. Furthermore, the events were not announced, and tickets for them were not sold. It means that the District Authorities prefunded organization of the events rather than purchased tickets for already organized concerts in order to distribute them between the population of the Districts.
Head of FAS Anti-Cartel Department, Andrey Tenishev, emphasized: “The cartel specifics is that they can intervene in absolutely competitive sectors. Under collusion with the authorities it leads to determining “the winner” even outside mandatory competitive procedures. In such cases, there is no more talk about price competition or quality competition”.