A bit of information about the interesting things happening on our end: The fight against the crooks from Yekaterinburg continues—they still have not given up hope of pulling a fast one with the construction of an interchange worth 6.5 billion rubles. On July 28, a preliminary hearing was held at the Moscow Arbitration Court on the customer’s application challenging the decision of the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia (FAS Russia), issued in response to our complaint of April 13, 2011 regarding the Municipal Institution “City of Yekaterinburg” procurement for the construction of a transport interchange worth 6 billion rubles .
The customer itself did not appear at the hearing, just as it had failed to appear at three FAS Russia commission hearings on our complaints, even though a representative of the institution had attended hearings before the antimonopoly authority and the arbitration court involving other participants in the procurement. At the hearing, together with the FAS Russia representative, we submitted brief responses pointing out, among other things, that the customer is asking for the decision to be overturned in full, while at the same time part of that decision is not even being challenged in its application and has already been complied with on May 25, 2011 by making amendments to the documentation Another contested part of the decision had been established by a different FAS Russia ruling on an earlier complaint from another bidder and is currently subject to review in arbitration court as part of a separate case, with a hearing scheduled for August 22. Moreover, the customer is currently not challenging, but also not complying with, the latest FAS Russia Decision and Order issued in response to our most recent complaint. Instead, the municipal institution is deliberately dragging out construction of the transport interchange needed by the city, extending the auction process until November 15, 2011 . At the moment, the procurement is even marked as “completed” on the official Sverdlovsk Region public procurement website and cannot be found through search among current tenders, which is also unlawful. In short: the customer is stalling for reasons that are unclear, half-heartedly challenging some things in arbitration court and not others, while complying with virtually none of the regulator’s orders. 2. We filed a complaint with FAS Russia against the wonderful outfit called LLC “Mediators’ Agency ‘Soglasie,’” whose business consists of organizing bid rigging. For example, they offer construction companies agreements for coordinated actions during electronic construction auctions. Here is an excerpt from their letter, which they shamelessly send out to thousands of construction companies:
Full text of the complaint sent to FAS Russia and the Voronezh regional office of FAS: docs.google.com/document/d/1F4iw8XdgzzmO7micuH4l9byLNdN1euNIQAcfz_-KgaU/edit 3. The Samara regional office of FAS Russia found our complaint regarding a 222 million ruble construction auction in Syzran to be justified: zakupki.gov.ru/pgz/public/action/orders/info/common_info/show and issued an order to remedy the legal violations.
The violation consisted of the absence of the design documentation required for construction, which meant construction companies could not participate in the tender because they had no access to the customer’s construction plans. The customer will be held administratively liable for violating the law. 4. We prepared and submitted a number of complaints, including one regarding the Khabarovsk Krai Government’s contract for the creation of an internet portal worth 25 million rubles , whose inflated price had already been criticized by experts and reported on by the media.
Apart from the price, which strictly speaking is not a violation of Federal Law No. 94-FZ, the documentation also contains a number of provisions restricting competition: an undefined scope and content of work under the contract, a requirement that contractors hold an unnecessary license, and so on. Full text of the complaint