MOSCOW, August 11 (RAPSI) – The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has found 90 companies to be guilty of fixing up the results of tenders for delivery of military uniforms and gear for the Russia’s Interior Ministry, Federal Security Service, and Federal Customs Service, the agency reports on Thursday.

FAS has noted that there were 118 legal entities involved in the case as defendants. The agency could detect 18 rigged public online auctions involving in total 3.5 billion rubles ($54 million).

Ninety companies were found guilty of cahoots. Some of the cartel members simultaneously managed three to four legal entities registering them as auction participants to give the appearance of competitive bidding. Prices were as a rule offered by one entity in spite of 11 to 40 other organizations participating in an auction; they abandoned the struggle in order to ensure that the “right” participant wins and to prop up prices, the antimonopoly watchdog noted.

“The cartel members have developed a system of ‘quotas’ calculated basing on the starting price of a contract proportionally with the number of participants of an auction. The ‘quotas’ could be obtained, exchanged, or accumulated. After accumulating a certain quantity of ‘quotas’ one of the colluders could become the ‘contract holder’ in the framework of an auction,” – Andrey Tenishev, the head of the FAS Anti-cartel Directorate said.

The agency has stressed that its decision and case materials will be submitted to the Interior Ministry’s General Administration for Economic Security and Combating Corruption, so it could initiate a criminal case against the colluders.

According to Andrey Tsarikovsky, a Deputy Head of FAS, cartels operating in the sphere of procurement for security agencies not only undermine basic principles of competition, but may become a threat to national security.