In June 2011 the Commission for Protection of Competition issued Guidelines for the Detection of Bid Rigging in Public Procurement.
The commission identified bid rigging as one of the most serious violations of competition, pointing out that it not only affects competition, but also has a significant impact on the state economy. Market participants often secretly agree to raise the price of goods or services, or lower to the quality of goods or services, depending on the nature of the public procurement in question.
The new guidelines provides answers to questions such as the following:
- What are the most common forms of bid rigging?
- In which markets is bid rigging more likely to occur?
- How can the procurement process be administered so as to reduce the risk of bid rigging?
In fighting this kind of distortion of competition, the commission expects to be assisted by the Public Procurement Office, which is one of the reasons for issuing these guidelines. The guidelines are based on the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development guidelines dealing with the same topic.
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