An Italian administrative court says bid-rigging is competition restrictions by object

By a judgment handed down on 21 October 2015 in the cases 12931-12935/2015, the Regional Administrative Court of Latium (the Court) rejected the appeal against the infringement decision made by the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) in the case I765, GareGestioni Fanghi in Lombardia e Piemonte . By the challenged decision, the ICA had penalized five firms for implementing bid-rigging practices with regard to the competitive tender procedures called for by the contracting authorities in the regions of Lombardy and Piedmont for the awards of contracts for the provision of muds depuration service for the 2008-2013 period.

The Court found the ICA decision well-grounded and made it clear that bid-rigging practices constituted competition restriction ‘by object’. Referring to the CJEU judgment in Cartes Bancaires and employing a language similar to the Commission Notice on the application of Article 101(3) TFEU, the Court pointed out that agreements having as object the fixing of prices or the allocation of market shares are per se harmful for the competition health. The likelihood that such practices lead to negative effects on competition is so high that proving their effective economic effects is superfluous. Because, by coordinating their conducts in relation to the above tender procedures the parties intended to fix prices and share the relevant market, the Court concluded that such bid-rigging practices fell within the category of ‘object restraint’. In support, the Court added that bid-rigging practices are hard-core competition restrictions and liable to seriously harm the interests of contracting authorities as consumers and taxpayers. Indeed. the conducts of the parties infringed the provision in the EU Treaties and the Italian Constitution that lay down that suppliers of the public administration should be selected through competitive tender procedures.

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