The Swiss Competition Authority finds a cartel in the market for the cleaning of road tunnels

By a recent decision the Swiss Competition Authority (Comco) has found that three firms had cartelized the market for cleaning of road tunnels in the 2008-2013 period. The parties coordinated their conducts by exchaning sensitive information with regard to the competitive tender procedures organized by the regional contracting authorities to select the providers of the cleaning services. In this way the parties established in advance who among them would submit the winning bid for a given tendered out contract.
Interestingly, all the parties invoked the leniency regime adopted with the Ordinance of 12 March 2004 (Cartel Act Sanctions Ordinance, http://www.admin.ch/ch/e/rs/2/251.5.en.pdf). ISS Kanal Service that was the first to blew the whistle was granted full immunity, while the other two cartelists, Franz Pfister and Maschinelle Reinigungs, which applied later for leniency, were granted substantial fine reduction to the effect that the total amount of fines levied on them was CHF 165.000,00. Finally, all the firms reached with the Comco a settlement agreement to close the procedure, by which they committed to not carry out similar anti-competitive arrangements in future.

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