MOSCOW, October 9 (RAPSI) – The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has launched 161 cases over collusion at auctions in the first half of 2017, the statement of the watchdog reads on Monday.

According to head of the Service’s department responsible for fighting cartels, Andrey Tenishev, collusion at auctions experienced transformation in recent times. One collusion case may involve dozens of economic entities and hundreds of auctions dealing in billions of rubles, he said. The largest cartel involved 90 economic entities and influenced 1,300 open auctions.

Tenishev noted that such cartels are usually accompanied by anti-competition agreements with state clients, which is a corruption crime on itself.

The official stated that if in normal circumstances with healthy competition auctions can see 20% decrease in prices, ones involving cartels have only 0.5-1% drop. This means that the state budget could save 20% more money on average if there were no cartels.