The Italian Competition Authority launches an investigation into rid bidding practices in the market for school cleaning

By a decision made on 8 October 2014 in the case I785 the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has opened an Article 101 TFEU investigation against CNS, MFN, EXITone and Kuadra. These firms are alleged to have coordinated their conducts in the market for school cleaning services with regard to the tender competition procedure organized by Consip in September 2013. By the tender procedure Consip intended to award 13 contracts for the provision of school cleaning services. CNS, EXITone and Kuadra bid for some of the above contracts through the AT1 consortium, of which they were members, and also MFM submitted a bid. The ICA believed that the parties agreed to allocate eight of the ten tendered out contracts, with three contracts being awarded to AT1 and three to MFM. The ICA concerns about the above bid rigging practices were based on the fact that MFM did not bid for the contracts awarded to AT1; whereas AT1 did not bid for the two contracts then awarded to MFM and it submitted a weak bid for the the other contracts. In addition, the ICA noted that the bid rigging practices might be facilitated by the structural links between CNS and MFM, as the latter was a member of the former.
The ICA has to close the investigation by the deadline of 31.12.2015.


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