Competition.Economy sanctions Puig's brother and his partners with fines for agreeing on prices in À Punt
"Serious breach of distortion of competition".
This is the final verdict of the Valencian Community Competition Defense Commission regarding the
cartel that Ximo Puig's brother and his partners set up to try to rig a
Valencian public
television contest
À Punt, and which will now prevent them from hiring with public administrations.
As proof of the price pact there are even WhatsApp conversations between businessmen.
"I've done numbers, do them too and we'll talk later,"
they said to each other the days before the deadline for submitting bids.
The 91-page resolution, to which EL MUNDO has had access and against which there is no administrative appeal, leaves no room for doubt about how the companies linked to Francis Puig behaved, which are punished despite that in the end they did not even take the contract because the audiovisual entity itself denounced them before.
In another intervened conversation, it is found "that there will be a distribution", according to the Commission.
Businessmen go so far as to affirm days before the tender is published on the public sector contracting portal: «They are already working on the tender (...).
It doesn't seem that complicated.
At another time they
openly talk about coordinating: "Now we can't share anything because we don't know what we will present
.
"
The fines to the companies, in addition, are set by the dependent body of the Ministry of Economy, which is paradoxically in the hands of Compromís, the main partner of the Socialists in the Valencian Government.
Specifically, the fines are 16,801 euros for
Comunicacions dels Ports
, 26,103 for
Canal Maestrat
and
Kriol Produccions
and 3,337 for
Visualiza
.
Comunicacions dels Ports is the company of the president's brother, Francis Puig, while Canal Maestrat and Kriol Produccions belong to their partners, the Adell Bover brothers.
The Commission for the Defense of Competition considers the organization of a "cartel" by these companies to agree on prices proven.
To the point that they presented
identical offers
for different lots in order to win the contest on some correspondents from À Punt.
The Ministry of Economy first investigated the facts and concluded that it was "proven the existence of an infringement consisting of a cartel for the distribution of lots 1, 3 and 3 of the public tender for the contracting of the service (...), by presenting coordination of identical offers'.
And this is the thesis now endorsed by the Competition Defense Commission to justify the sanctions against audiovisual companies for failing to comply with the Public Sector Contract Law.
Furthermore, the Commission's proposal is to prohibit Ximo Puig's brother and his partners from contracting with public administrations, for which it will forward its resolution to the State Public Procurement Advisory Board.
In this sense, it recalls that the
Law on Public Sector Contracts
“establishes that persons who have been firmly sanctioned for a serious breach of distortion of competition are subject to a prohibition from contracting with entities that are part of the public sector. ».
In addition, Puig's company is being investigated for aid to the Valencian.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
Know more
Ximo Puig
WhatsApp
You compromise
Valencian CommunityEconomy sanctions Puig's brother and his partners with fines for agreeing on prices in À Punt
EmpresasSerrano moves the Post Office headquarters to the Salamanca district and reserves half of the works budget for its noble floor
Politics Citizens finalizes an agreement with Puig for the accounts against the criteria of Compromís and Podemos
See links of interest
Check Child Lottery
Check Christmas Lottery
Girona - Sabadell
Morabanc Andorra - Real Madrid, live
Valencia CF - Cádiz
Southampton - Liverpool
Lugo - Sporting de Gijón