The Italian Competition Authority finds a bid-rigging arrangement in the market for rail equipment

Forniture Trenitalia is the latest Article 101 TFEU investigation into bid-rigging practices closed by the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) with an infringement decision (Decision of 27 May 2015, Case I759, Forniture Trenitalia). The ICA found that 12 major firms coordinated their behaviours with relation to the competititive tender procedures organized by Trenitalia over the 2008-2011 period for the selection of suppliers of rail equipment and spare parts. In the ICA view, the conducts of the parties amounted to a hard-core cartel by which they agreed to fix prices and allocate market shares. As usual for this type of anti-competitive practices, the parties decided who amongst them would submit the lower winning bid. They implemented the cartels by exchanging sensitive information in different ways and also put in place a monitoring mechanism based on a chart. For each party the chart indicated the contracts awarded to them (credits) and the tendered contracts for which the parties submitted a losing bid (debits). The balance of the credits and debts resulting from the chart was used by the parties as a basis to decide the allocation amongst them of the supply contracts to be tendered out by Trenitalia in future.
The cartel had negative effects on competiton leading to a sharp price increase as also noted by the contracting authority. The ICA imposed on the parties fines totalling up to € 1,987,307.16.


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