Greek inspectors raid 10 firms, including telecom for bid rigging

Officials from the Hellenic Competition Commission raided 10 companies, including Greece’s three telecommunications firms and related service providers during a probe into whether bids were being rigged.

It’s checking for violations of European Union regulations that “prohibit anti competitive agreements and decisions of associations of undertakings that prevent, restrict or distort competition, unilateral practices that constitute invitation to collude or future price announcements to competitors and the abuse of a dominant position,” in those sectors

The bids for services were put out by the ministries of Justice, Education, Environment, Digital Governance and others involved in digital upgrading projects funded by the European Union’s Recovery and Resilience Fund, said Kathimerini.

The report said the agency’s team went after five companies providing IT services and software, including Byte, Uni Systems, Cosmos Business Systems and telecom companies Cosmote, Vodafone and Nova.

They were inspected for the provision of equipment and not telecommunications services as well as two consulting companies. Inspectors collected a large volume of files to be examined, it was said without providing details.

Digital transition is a key part of the EU fund that gave Greece 1.28 billion euros ($1.39 billion) for digital transformation projects which the New Democracy government has accelerated, Greece ranked 25th among 27 member states.

There is also a budget of 522 million euros ($565.78 million) for projects related to connectivity for citizens, businesses and the state, providing lucrative contracts for bidders but it wasn’t said if the companies collaborated or if tenders were rigged. The National Herald