The Competition Authority and the Market (AGCM), at their meeting on
18 September adopted a handbook for the contracting for the
identification of critical competitive in the field of public
procurement.The
public procurement represents a very significant share of GDP and
therefore the anti-competitive agreements are particularly significant
forms of infringement of competition rules. In addition, these agreements, leading to a rise in costs for works or supplies constitute direct harm for the entire community.
With the Handbook, the Competition Authority intends to provide to the contracting authorities a tool to intensify the fight against possible cartel participating in tenders.
They are identified and summarized the most common practices to get around the competition, so that they can be identified by the same contracting and reported to the Antitrust Authority for information.
It contains an explicit reference to the following:
Boycott of the race: the boycott of the race is characterized by the failure to submit bids by one or more undertakings, in order to extend the contract with your supplier or to restart a pro rata basis the work or the supply of all the undertakings concerned the contract. The evidence of this strategy could be the following: no bid submitted; presentation of a single tender or a number of offers in any case insufficient to award the contract; Bidding all characterized by the same amount.
Offers convenient: offers convenient represent a particularly widespread practice of bid rigging, intended to give an apparent regularity competitive in the race and to conceal the raising of auction records. It refers to the offers that are characterized by far too high amounts or at least higher than the same subjects offered in similar procurement procedures. This category also offers contain special conditions and notoriously unacceptable for the contracting authority, in order to be considered for exclusion. They are also to be considered warning signs submitting higher bids than the list prices.
Subcontracting or ATI: designed to increase competition by allowing the overcoming of thresholds and qualification of smaller enterprises, groupings and subcontracting may also conceal practices to promote the sharing of the market or even of the individual project. An indication of such sharing-mechanism can be found where businesses, individually able to participate in a race, choose tigazionio astenervisi in view to a subcontracting or opt for the establishment of a joint venture. Particularly suspect are the cases where an entity initially decides to participate in a race, withdrawing the offer at a later time, and then be the beneficiary of a subcontract relating to the same race.
Rotating offers and market sharing: the analysis of the sequence of awards may indicate the presence of a sign. When the practice divider affects a single client latter will be better able to recognize suspicious regularity in the sequence of the successful tenderers and the division into lots of the winnings. The regular suspects could cover not only the number of awards but also the sum of the amounts.
Alarm signals in the way of participation in the auction: it is possible that the members of a cartel to submit applications for participation in the auction in ways that betray the common formulation. And 'the case of: common typos; same handwriting; reference to questions of other participants in the same competition; similar estimates or miscalculations; Delivery contemporary, by a person, the more bids on behalf of different participants in the same bidding process.
The behavior described above can be tools used improperly to pollute the market, distort the rules of competition and anti-competitive cartels ad hoc.
With this in mind, and to prevent these phenomena detrimental to the proper functioning of the market, the Authority requests the contracting authorities to report anomalous phenomena, which in a first phase, concern only the races above threshold.
If the Competition Authority should reach a finding of infringement, the contracting authority may proceed with the request for any damage (resulting from the anti-competitive practice), where the contract has already been awarded.
With the Handbook, the Competition Authority intends to provide to the contracting authorities a tool to intensify the fight against possible cartel participating in tenders.
They are identified and summarized the most common practices to get around the competition, so that they can be identified by the same contracting and reported to the Antitrust Authority for information.
It contains an explicit reference to the following:
Boycott of the race: the boycott of the race is characterized by the failure to submit bids by one or more undertakings, in order to extend the contract with your supplier or to restart a pro rata basis the work or the supply of all the undertakings concerned the contract. The evidence of this strategy could be the following: no bid submitted; presentation of a single tender or a number of offers in any case insufficient to award the contract; Bidding all characterized by the same amount.
Offers convenient: offers convenient represent a particularly widespread practice of bid rigging, intended to give an apparent regularity competitive in the race and to conceal the raising of auction records. It refers to the offers that are characterized by far too high amounts or at least higher than the same subjects offered in similar procurement procedures. This category also offers contain special conditions and notoriously unacceptable for the contracting authority, in order to be considered for exclusion. They are also to be considered warning signs submitting higher bids than the list prices.
Subcontracting or ATI: designed to increase competition by allowing the overcoming of thresholds and qualification of smaller enterprises, groupings and subcontracting may also conceal practices to promote the sharing of the market or even of the individual project. An indication of such sharing-mechanism can be found where businesses, individually able to participate in a race, choose tigazionio astenervisi in view to a subcontracting or opt for the establishment of a joint venture. Particularly suspect are the cases where an entity initially decides to participate in a race, withdrawing the offer at a later time, and then be the beneficiary of a subcontract relating to the same race.
Rotating offers and market sharing: the analysis of the sequence of awards may indicate the presence of a sign. When the practice divider affects a single client latter will be better able to recognize suspicious regularity in the sequence of the successful tenderers and the division into lots of the winnings. The regular suspects could cover not only the number of awards but also the sum of the amounts.
Alarm signals in the way of participation in the auction: it is possible that the members of a cartel to submit applications for participation in the auction in ways that betray the common formulation. And 'the case of: common typos; same handwriting; reference to questions of other participants in the same competition; similar estimates or miscalculations; Delivery contemporary, by a person, the more bids on behalf of different participants in the same bidding process.
The behavior described above can be tools used improperly to pollute the market, distort the rules of competition and anti-competitive cartels ad hoc.
With this in mind, and to prevent these phenomena detrimental to the proper functioning of the market, the Authority requests the contracting authorities to report anomalous phenomena, which in a first phase, concern only the races above threshold.
If the Competition Authority should reach a finding of infringement, the contracting authority may proceed with the request for any damage (resulting from the anti-competitive practice), where the contract has already been awarded.
