Therefore, the Federal Competition Authority (BWB) is filing a criminal complaint in the amount of 27.15 million euros against Swietelsky and two subsidiaries, it was announced on Thursday. Due to the cooperation with the BWB since 2017, Swietelsky has enjoyed leniency status, which reduces the penalty.
The construction groups Strabag, Habau and most recently Porr have already been convicted in the course of the investigation of the cartel, which is said to have led to price fixing, market sharing and the exchange of competitively sensitive information. The latter had to pay 62 million euros last autumn, the highest cartel fine in the history of the BWB. The cartel is said to have included almost all sectors in the structural and civil engineering sector, in particular road construction. Projects on the Pyhrn and Karawankenautobahn are said to have been affected. The parties involved proceeded, among other things, with a “points system”, which is said to have compensated for the delay in tenders.
Swietelsky “facilitated the processing of the facts” through continuous and comprehensive cooperation, the cartel supervisory authority said.
When asked by OÖN, a spokesman for the construction company said that “after internal checks, it was concluded” that there was actually fault and that cooperation with the authorities was “natural”.
According to the BWB, the introduction of new company-internal and certified compliance guidelines, i.e. rules of conduct, had a mitigating effect – as was the case at Porr. A digital whistleblowing system was also installed. This should give employees the opportunity to provide information on possible antitrust misconduct by colleagues “anonymously and with protection against consequences”.
Source: Nachrichten
