Danish Competition Council: Members of the Danish Passenger Transport Association engaged in collusive tendering

The Danish Competition Council’s decision of 28 February 2018 – collusive tendering by members of the Danish Passenger Transport Association 

By student intern Nina Fold von Bülow

The Danish Passenger Transport Association is a trade association for road carriers in central Jutland. The Association tenders for public passenger transport services on behalf of its members. In its decision, the Council established that the members had agreed which public contracts to bid for, fixing also prices and allocating routes. Further, the statutes of the Association prohibited the members from tendering in competition with the Association.

The Competition Council held that the Association had thereby illegally coordinated its members’ bidding activities. The Association was found to have deliberately restricted the internal competition among its members in connection with tenders and, with that, the competition that would normally have existed for such contracts. The Council also found it problematic that it was not possible for the members to cooperate with non-members when submitting bids for contracts which the Association also tendered for.

In these circumstances, the Association was held to have violated the prohibition of anti-competitive agreements in section 6 of the Competition Act. The Council ordered the Association to cease the anti-competitive practices immediately and to refrain from such activities in future. The Council also decided to submit the case to the State Prosecutor for Serious Economic and International Crime for prosecution.

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