The Crimean interregional OFAS Russia fined the participants in the cartel conspiracy

The Crimean interregional OFAS Russia fined participants in a cartel agreement when carrying out purchases for the needs of the State Budgetary Institution of Healthcare of the Republic of Crimea «Leninskaya Central District Hospital». The essence of the matter was announced in the press service of the department:

In December 2022, the service recognized Express LLC, Medikapharm LLC, Delivery Plus LLC and 7 other organizations as violating antimonopoly legislation*. We wrote about this earlier Here. Enterprises engaged in anti-competitive behavior at 18 auctions, which led to price maintenance during the auction and a lack of competition at the auction.

Let us remind you that the companies carried out joint preparations for participation in the auction, submitted applications, price proposals and concluded contracts from the same IP addresses, and exchanged information. The business entities were actually located at the same address, where documents used in the work of other cartel participants were found.

Based on the results of the auction, contracts worth over 40 million rubles. were concluded with the above 10 enterprises. For the conclusion and implementation of a cartel agreement, turnover fines were imposed on LLC Express, LLC Medikapharm, LLC Delivery Plus in a total amount of about 500 thousand rubles**.

For reference:

* According to paragraph 2 of part 1 of Article 11 of the Law on the Protection of Competition, agreements between business entities-competitors are recognized as a cartel and are prohibited, that is, between business entities selling goods on the same product market, or between business entities purchasing goods on the same product market, if such agreements lead or may lead to an increase, decrease or maintenance of prices at auction
** in accordance with Article 14.32 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation

source: press service of the Crimean interregional OFAS (https://krym.fas.gov.ru/news/10894)