THE ANTIMONOPOLY SERVICE EXPOSED A ROAD CARTEL IN MOSCOW FOR 1.4 BILLION RUB

Moscow OFAS exposed a cartel between “SK Imperial” Ltd. and “Concept-Stroi” Ltd. for procurement of works in the field of Moscow road facilities. The overall initial (maximum) contract price was 1.4 billion RUB

Based on the bidding outcome, “SK Imperial” concluded seven contracts for 1.3 billion RUB for developing transport infrastructure and equipping road facilities in the Troitsky and Novomoskovsky Administrative District of Moscow and improving the areas adjacent to the stations of Moscow Central Ring in the South, South-West and South-East Administrative Districts of Moscow. Procurements took place in May - November 2017, the organizers were “Mosremont” State Unitary Enterprise and “Capital Repair Directorate of Moscow Capital Repair Department”.

It was established that “SK Imperial” and “Concept-Stroi” acted in the interests of each other and exchange information in the course of bidding. Their actions resulted in maintaining procurement prices. In most cases, the contact prices reduced by 1-5% of the initial (maximum) contract price.

Moscow OFAS found that the companies violated Clause 2 Part 1 Article 11 of the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”. Liability for anticompetitive agreements is specified in Part 2 Article 14.32 of the Code on Administrative Violations – administrative fines up to 50% of the initial (maximum) contract price for legal entities and up to 50,000 RUB for top executives.

Head of FAS Anti-Cartel Department Andrey Tenishev emphasized: “Cartel members practically refused to compete, which resulted in procurement of works in the road facilities and territorial improvement nearly at the initial price. Taking into account the size of the revenue gained by the cartel members, the decision of the Moscow OFAS Commission will be forwarded to the law enforcement bodies to open a criminal case”.