APPEAL COURT SUPORTED FAS IN A CASE ON COLLUSION BETWEEN MOSCOW HOSPITALS AND A CARTEL
In February 2017, FAS established a fact of concluding and implementing an anticompetitive agreement between hospitals and cartel members
The 9th Arbitration Appeal Court confirmed legitimacy and reasonableness of FAS conclusions with regard to three Moscow hospitals (Vinogradov City Clinical Hospital, Moscow Health Care Department; Vorokhobov No. 67 City Clinical Hospital, Moscow Health Care Department; No. 68 City Clinical Hospital, Moscow Health Care Department) and “PHARM-PROJECT” Ltd., “Vesta-Pharm Ltd.; and upheld the ruling of Moscow Arbitration Court.
The Appeal Court agreed with the conclusions of the competition authority that written communications between cartel members and the ordering parties before ending the auctions was unacceptable as well as jointly drafting the grounds for rejecting the bids of economic entities not involved in the agreement.
The total sum of the initial maximum contract prices at the auctions was over 644 million RUB.
Head of FAS Anti-Cartel Department Andrey Tenishev pointed out: “Collusion between ordering parties and bidders is the most dangerous because using the administrative resource they are able to eliminate bona fide players. It is impossible to counter such anticompetitive agreements without the judicial system supporting decisions of competition authorities”.