The Antitrust committee (Competition Development Committee and Consumer Rights Protection) of Uzbekistan has launched a case against Uzbekneftegaz, the press service of the Committee said.

The Committee’s Tashkent City Office found signs of violations by Uzbekneftegaz in two call for bids to select the best offer for almost 4.8 billion soums, which violated Article 29 of the Competition Law (requirements against restricting competition in tenders).

This article states that tenders can be organized by lowering or raising the starting price. Actions that lead or may lead to restriction of competition are banned during tenders, including:

• violation of the procedure for conducting tenders;
• coordination of the activities of tender participants;
• creation of preferential conditions for participation in tenders for a participant or several tender participants, including by access to information;
• inclusion in tender documents and rules, including in the text of the announcement, of requirements that lead or may lead to restriction of competition between participants;
• influencing the process and results of tenders;
• dissemination of false, unsubstantiated information that may lead to a change in demand, artificially inflating prices at auctions;
• implementation by auction operators and (or) organizers and (or) customers and (or) participants in auctions of anticompetitive agreements and coordinated actions;
• use of a pricing algorithm at auctions held electronically, leading to artificial formation of prices, i.e. software that allows monitoring, calculating, setting and controlling prices for goods based on pre-established parameters;
• significant overpricing of goods (demand, supply or volume of work) at auctions than those formed in the presence of competition, as a result of repeated failure to fulfill the terms of the auction;
• unjustified evasion by customer or seller from concluding a contract based on the results of the auction.

The article defines a number of other prohibitions that lead or may lead to restriction of competition.

However, given the fact that Uzbekneftegaz is virtually fully owned by the state, even potential big fine will in the end of the day mean that the state will put the cash from one of its pockets to another.