The Court indicated a number of signs of anticompetitive collusion in the procurement under Law No. 223-FZ
The customer made 4 requests for quotations with the same subject of purchase, but different periods of service provision. One company became the contractor for all contracts. At the request of other market participants, the FAS established collusion, this decision was challenged.
The court considered the collusion confirmed:
• incorrectly determined the subject of purchases. The composition of the services did not fully correspond to it, which is why the interested parties were misled and could not submit applications;
• artificially fragmented the purchase to speed up the procedure;
• the fragmentation was facilitated by the calculation of the NMCD not according to the Methodology. Instead of the average price, we took the lowest;
• acted suspiciously when collecting data to calculate the initial price. After the responses to the first request, a new one was sent. At the same time, the circle of addressees changed, with the exception of the future performer, and the other two recipients were affiliated with him. So, the employees of the customer and the contractor corresponded in order to adjust their proposals;
• significantly increased the prices of two contracts. The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation noted that such a change can be regarded as a circumvention of antimonopoly requirements for bidding.
Document: Resolution of the AC of the North-Western District of 05.08.2022 in case N A21-9423/2020