Bulgarian competition watchdog finds cartel in Veliko Tarnovo tender

The Bulgarian Commission for Protection of Competition (CPC) has identified a cartel involving three companies participating in a public tender organized by the Veliko Tarnovo Municipality. The tender, funded by the ‘Regions in Growth’ 2014–2020 operational program, concerned the design, construction, and supervision of a pedestrian overpass.

The investigation targeted Skorpion Investstroy EOOD, Planex EOOD, and El Stroy Engineering - 2015 OOD. The latter two companies participated as members of the consortium ‘Nadlez - Magistralna’. The proceedings were initiated following a signal from the Deputy Minister of Regional Development and Public Works.

Evidence of coordinated action included identical authorship and last modifications of documents, identical technical proposals containing the same errors, similar project visualizations, and identical design teams. Metadata analysis revealed that the final changes to documents for both participants were made by the same user. The CPC concluded that Skorpion Investstroy EOOD submitted a cover bid to create a false impression of competition, while the consortium’s bid was nearly identical to the estimated value of the contract.