It is absolutely wonderful that we were able to build RosPil in such a way that it does not depend on me at all. During the 15 days I was lounging around in a special detention facility, the work did not stop and continued entirely as normal. I asked the team to write about what interesting things happened while I was away: A brief summary of what has been happening at "RosPil" over the past few weeks. First: well-founded complaints were upheld regarding a number of procurements: — A procurement under the program "Modernization of Healthcare in the Republic of Ingushetia for 2011–2012." Contract price: 47,860,803 rubles. Among the violations: a requirement that the contractor may not assign rights and obligations under the contract to third-party organizations; subcontractors may be engaged to perform work under the contract only with the written approval of the Customer or its authorized representative the auction documentation contains no justification for the initial maximum contract price. There are also serious discrepancies in pricing information between the local and consolidated cost estimates, making it impossible to properly comply with Article 19.1 of the Federal Law the documentation contains no requirements regarding the quality or technical characteristics of the goods, works, or services; no safety requirements; no requirements regarding the functional characteristics (consumer properties) of the goods; no requirements regarding dimensions, packaging, shipment, work results, or other indicators related to determining whether the supplied goods, performed work, or provided services meet the customer's needs. The complaint was upheld, and an order was issued:
— A contract for support, maintenance, and development of the information portal "Official Website of the Federal Agency for Subsoil Use." Contract price: 2,480,500 rubles. Among the violations: the customer imposed an impossible requirement that a bidder seeking to conclude the state contract must hold exclusive rights to the software the possibility of denying a participant admission on grounds not предусмотренным by law improper justification of the initial (maximum) price. The complaint was upheld.
However, the antimonopoly service ignored our argument about possible collusion between the customer and the bidder—the only company capable of winning the auction because of certain contract terms. Because of this, we will shortly be submitting a complaint to law enforcement and financial oversight authorities so they can examine the activities of the customer and the winning organization. — The situation with contracts for sanitation and cleaning of public areas in Moscow's Northern Administrative District deserves special attention. We challenged more than 60 such standard contracts (with a total value exceeding 1.8 billion rubles) that contained the same violations in their documentation: the contractor may not engage subcontractors without the Customer's written permission. the contractor is required to comply with all instructions of the Customer. the customer has the right to unilaterally change the types of work. In addition, before the tender was announced, the Prefecture of the Northern Administrative District (formally not the Customer) circulated an Order instructing the district's engineering services to prepare the documentation and conduct the 2012 auctions for street cleaning. In essence, this order by the Prefecture violates Articles 7 and 34 of the public procurement law: the developer of the auction documentation and the members of the auction commission must be appointed directly by the Customer itself. All of our complaints were upheld. At the commission hearing, it was announced that the Customers had been issued orders requiring them to remedy the violations. Here is an example of a standard ruling:
At the same time, the auctions have already been held. We will look into the matter and, if necessary, challenge any unlawful actions. Second: an "anti-cartel" case has been opened against Mediator Agency Soglasie LLC. Some time ago, we filed a complaint with the Federal Antimonopoly Service regarding this agency's activities.
Full text of the complaint The Federal Antimonopoly Service conducted an inspection and opened an "anti-cartel" case. Russia's Ministry of Internal Affairs has been informed that there are materials warranting possible checks into this organization. On December 20, the case was postponed because additional interested parties needed to be brought in; the new hearing date is not yet known. We will keep you updated. Third: on December 23, one of our cases concerning the Yekaterinburg interchange was heard in the Moscow Arbitration Court (commercial court). I wrote a lot about this contract, for example here In short: the court did not support the position of the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia regarding the illegality of the requirements for permits and prior work experience imposed on bidders. At the same time, it found RosPil's arguments lawful and well-founded, and left that part of the antimonopoly service's decision in force. Our arguments in the complaint under review concerned a substantial restriction of competition and the removal of the procurement from the list of current tenders on the official website. Now the customer will be required to amend the auction documentation in line with this part of the ruling, and we will definitely keep an eye on that. RosPil has already succeeded in getting the customer to finally attach the design and cost-estimate documentation; a clause allowing unlimited changes to the contract terms during performance was removed from the contract (under the law, changes must not exceed 10%); and so on. More details Fourth: during this time, a number of complaints and statements have been prepared for the antimonopoly authorities and law enforcement agencies. In particular, for example, a criminal complaint was filed in connection with an open tender for the right to conclude a state contract for a package of work involving engineering and geodetic surveys, the formation of land plots, and their registration in the state cadastre, for plots actually occupied by apartment buildings. There is every reason to believe that the work that was the subject of the tender had in fact been completed long before the tender was announced: the land plots under the apartment buildings had already been entered into the state cadastre. The full text of the complaint can be found here **At present, the total value of contracts in which violations have been stopped amounts to 40,407,536,066.71 rubles. ** The amount of your money currently in RosPil's account is: 5,551,860 rubles 39 kopecks.
Funds spent since the start of the project: 3,074,536 rubles 23 kopecks. Thus, the total amount raised is: 8,626,396 rubles 62 kopecks.