BRATISLAVA, April 8, (WEBNOVINY) – The Antitrust Office of the Slovak Republic closed the scrutiny of public procurements, in which the company Hayek Consulting participated. The body explained that it failed to collect evidence that would confirm existence of a cartel agreement. The respective report was posted on the authority’s website.
The Antitrust Office commenced the probation based on information disseminated in September and October 2010. The aim was to detect potential violation of competition protecting rules in public procurement contests, in which the company participated. The office scrutinized contests from 2007-2010 announced by the Finance Ministry, the Economy Ministry and the National Agency for Development of Small and Medium-Size Enterprises (NADSME). The Antitrust Office did not examine or evaluate processes of procurers as set by the Public Procurement Act, the use and efficacy of public funds, the report writes, adding that such probation is not in its jurisdiction. The Antitrust Office can scrutinize whether certain moves interfered with the economic competition. In this case, the tenders could have violated the ban anchored in the section 4 of the Law on Protection of Competition, forbidding agreements that restrict economic competition.
Co-owners of the company Martin Chren and Ivan Svejna (Most-Hid), later appointed as state secretaries in the Iveta Radicova’s Cabinet, allegedly made money on contracts announced by the Finance Ministry under the previous government. The second controversial event relates to an 8,100-euro contract awarded by NADSME to Hayek Consulting at the time when Chren and Svejna already served in the government, which would constitute a conflict of interest. The company later canceled the contract. Unlike Svejna, Chren failed to resign from the ministerial post over the scandalized deals. He stepped down from the post earlier this year but rejected that his decision would be related to this case.
SITA