The Czech Anti-Monopoly office (UOHs) has fined six construction companies CZK 26,8m for taking part in a cartel agreement. The charge goes back to 2011 when the companies submitted bids for CZK 16m worth of reconstruction work for the towns of Hroby and Nebužely na Táborsku in southern Bohemia. UOHS handed down the heaviest fine (CZK 21m) to Swietelsky stavební based upon the volume of its turnover. UOHS began its investigations following a warning from the Ministry of Finance’s auditing office. “After an investigation of the bids, in particular comparisons with the itemized budgets submitted by the competing companies, the office found that all six participants handed in bids in which a significant majority of individual items in the construction budget were exactly the same,” said UOHS’s chairman Petr Rafaj.
