OREANDA-NEWS. July 09, 2014. The Office of the Federal Antimonopoly Service in the Altai Region (Altai OFAS Russia) held three construction companies in Barnaul administratively liable for bid-rigging at an auction. The total fines were 2.7 million RUB.

Altai OFAS Russia opened administrative proceedings upon investigating a case on violating the antimonopoly law – concluding and implementing an agreement by the companies that resulted in maintaining prices at the auction for the right to carry out capital repair the roof of a residential apartment house in Barnaul.

The anticompetitive strategy enabled a bid-rigging participant – “RSO PLUS” Ltd. to obtain the right to carry out repair works at the price just 1.5% lower that the initial (maximum) price.

“Concluding competition-restricting oral agreements is one of the most serious violations of the antimonopoly law punishable by turnover fines. Since the initial auction price was 9,145,000 RUB, each of the three companies will have to pay a fine equal to the one tenth of the initial cost of the auction subject – 914,600 RUB”, explained the Head of Altai OFAS Russia, Stepan Pospelov.

In 2014 “StroiGarant” Ltd. was already held administratively liable twice. In the first incident, Altai OFAS Russia fined the construction company 100,000 RUB for bid-rigging at the auction for repair of municipal apartments.