Competition Council Fines 3 Companies for Rigging Public Bids

The Competition Council has fined All Businesses Management SRL, Cityplan Studio SRL, and Enterprise Software Development SRL a total of 1.361 million lei (approximately €270,000) for rigging public tenders organized by the National Agency for Cadastre and Real Estate Publicity and its subordinate offices.

Following an investigation, the competition authority found that the three companies submitted rigged bids in 27 public procurement procedures for contracts related to digital and physical document archiving services from 2018 to 2020.

The three firms coordinated their commercial policies to divide the public procurement procedures, including exchanging competitively sensitive information, during the 2018-2020 period. They submitted bids in various forms (as associations, individual bidders, or subcontractors) without overlapping with each other.

The fines were issued as follows:

• All Businesses Management SRL: 1,203,925.51 lei
• Enterprise Software Development SRL: 127,243.71 lei
• Cityplan Studio SRL: 30,296.82 lei

“The three companies did not compete in the public tenders organized by the National Agency for Cadastre and Real Estate Publicity. Instead, they aimed to maximize their chances of winning as many procedures as possible and, consequently, increase their profits. Moreover, competition between them was replaced with a form of collaboration,” stated Bogdan Chirițoiu, President of the Competition Council.

Additionally, to ensure genuine competition in the public procurement process, the Competition Council recommends that the National Agency for Cadastre and Real Estate Publicity structure its requirements in a way that encourages the participation of as many operators as possible, allowing them to compete based on the offered price rather than just the technical characteristics of the equipment provided.