A lighting cartel in Catalonia: the TSJC confirms the fine of €56,634

The Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia confirms the fine of €56,634.54 imposed by the ACCO on a lighting firm for sharing tenders with another company in the sector.

According to economistjurist.es, the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia has dismissed the appeal of Arcoiris Lighting Systems against the sanction from the Catalan Competition Authority (ACCO), which imposed a fine of €56,634.54 in 2022. The company, dedicated to lighting, sound, and event setup, is also barred for 24 months from contracts with the Department of the Presidency of the Generalitat and its dependent bodies.

The central evidence is an email from the firm Events, with which Arcoiris had a long-standing relationship, sent on August 25, 2020 to prepare a tender for the Generalitat. It read:

“you are bidding with a 42% discount”

And, regarding the personnel section, another phrase:

“you have already marked that no, so that’s three points less”

For the recipient, this was support among partners. For the Court, it is direct evidence of bid sharing among competitors.

According to the court, the two companies divided roles in three consecutive tenders from the Presidency. Arcoiris presented discounts of 35%, 32%, and 42%, with increasingly weaker technical proposals (14, 12, and 11.5 points). Events, which competed with discounts between 33% and 39% and better technical scores, was the one that secured the contracts.

The collaboration extended beyond the Generalitat. For the Calella City Council, in 2018, Events sent Arcoiris a budget with concept and price, indicating that it was sufficient to invoice it in that format, and the firm was awarded the contract. In 2020, for the Igualada City Council, it sent a Word file that only needed to add “your logo and the budget number.” According to the ruling, that tender was never called.

Arcoiris maintains a different version: it had lost in two previous competitions, wanted to gain experience, and sought help from Events, which provided administrative support, but it set the 42% discount on its own. The Court does not accept this. It points to three direct pieces of evidence, the emails, and nine indications, including that Arcoiris was the only one, according to the court, competing at a loss without an alternative economic explanation.

Regarding the fine, the Court sets it at 4.9% of the total turnover for 2021, and rejects that it should be calculated only on public billing, which accounts for 40.25% of the total. The contracting ban, for its part, is maintained because, according to the court, it is a legal consequence of the Public Sector Contracts Law and not a sanction. The 24 months fall within the maximum of three years.

For SMEs in the same trade, the ruling leaves a clear guideline: friendship or a long-standing commercial relationship do not justify exchanging bids that the law requires to be confidential. The Court does not impose costs due to the technical complexity of the matter. An appeal for cassation can be filed against the ruling, which must be prepared within 30 days and demonstrate a specific interest in cassation.