Decisions of the President of the OCCP in the Field of Bid Rigging

Abstract

This article concerns the decisions of the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (OCCP) in the field of anti-competitive agreements in the form of bid rigging in the last ten years. During that time, the President of the OCCP issued 75 decisions. These decisions were appealed in 32 cases. A fine was imposed in 64 decisions. In the case of the remaining 11 decisions, the proceedings were discontinued or the penalty was not imposed. The article analyzes the issue of the harmfulness of bid rigging in the decisions of the President of the OCCP, the existing forms of bid rigging and evidence of their conclusion, as well as the cases of waiving the penalty due to the precedent nature of the case. In his decisions, the President of the OCCP had no doubts as to the harmfulness of bid rigging and the violation of public interest in those cases in which it occurred. Instances of bid rigging, consisting both in agreeing on the terms of the offers submitted as well as in placing and withdrawing offers, were detected in large numbers. In the analyzed decisions, the President of the OCCP consistently formulated and maintained the position on the difficulties of evidence in the case of concerted practices as part of which no civil law agreement was concluded between the participants of the agreement.