Extension works for the Tenerife Sur airport, carried out by the Spanish construction company Sacyr.Photo of the electronic page of the company
Madrid. The National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) decided to impose a fine of 203.6 million euros (4 thousand 300 million pesos) on six of the main Spanish construction companies, which for 25 years met secretly to manipulate and alter public works tenders, especially large infrastructure projects, such as highways, hospitals and airports.
The regulatory body unveiled its mode of operation fraudulent, which kept them in total impunity for a quarter of a century. The companies mentioned, all of them with business in Mexico, are Acciona, Dragados, Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas (FCC), Ferrovial, OHL and Sacyr.
This is one of the biggest scandals in the contracting of public works, which also exposes a way of doing business that has been suspected for decades, but that to date had not been exposed with such thoroughness. The CNMC ruling leaves no room for doubt: the six companies worked in a coordinated manner, in secret, aware that they were altering the rules of the game, with a clear advantage over the rest of the competitors and that allowed them to become the great beneficiaries during 25 years of major infrastructure works in Spain.
As explained by the CNMC in its resolution, since 1992 these six companies met weekly and decided on the public contracts in which they were going to share technical works from their bids. In addition, they exchanged information on their strategy for presenting themselves to public tenders. Among the thousands of affected tenders there are infrastructures of general interest such as hospitals, ports and airports and roads
.
The fines for a total of 203.6 million euros are distributed as follows: Acciona Construccion SA (29.4 million), Dragados SA (57.1 million), FCC (40.4 million), Ferrovial Construction (38.5 million), OHL SA (21.5 million ) and Sacyr Construction SA (16.7 million).
These companies met regularly, at least once a week, from 1992 to 2017, to analyze the public works tenders that had been published on different contracting platforms in the Spanish State. And this is how the opinion explains the course of the meetings: “In the meetings, the companies decided the tenders in which they were going to share –among all or in a subgroup– part or all of the works that would make up the technical offers of the tenders . The works were commissioned jointly by the members of the group to external companies. The companies could not modify the works generated jointly to present them in their offers without the knowledge and approval of the rest of the members of the group. The only customization allowed was the inclusion of logos and names of each company in the joint document to give administrations an appearance of independence in the presentation of offers. The companies developed complex rules of operation that evolved during the time that the conduct lasted.
In addition, during these meetings, the companies exchanged sensitive commercial information (other than that necessary to share jobs).
The meetings were canceled in 2017, when they decided to dissolve and recognize that these agreements could be contrary to the rules of defense of competition
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