Seven companies with a common field of action, the fight against fire, and an identical interest: the money that each Italian Region allocated to entrust the fire-fighting service in the hottest months. Multi-millionaire tenders conditioned by an alleged agreement signed between the companies , a "cartel" that would have allowed them to present themselves as a solid front in front of public bodies and obtain the contract by presenting minimum auction discounts, therefore at higher figures than if the competition was real.
The tests
This is the content of an investigation (against unknown persons) for fraud in public supplies initiated by the Public Prosecutor's Office on the basis of the claims of the Competition Authority, which in 2019 closed an investigation linked to alleged "illegal conduct, including anti-competitive nature ", linked to" public contracts "on" fire and helicopter rescue services ". The Authority had found that "from the analysis of various tenders" in that sector had emerged "a recurrent model of participation characterized by the absence of overlapping by companies in the offers and by particularly low auction discounts, sometimes close to zero". So the prosecutor Andrea Vacca, to verify the possible existence of criminal profiles, has instructed the Guardia di Finanza of Cagliari to carry out the necessary investigations and the military of the Economic Police Unit, acquired the documents relating to the Sardinian contract at the Antitrust headquarters , have prepared a report now on the magistrate's table.
The societies
The Authority, which speaks of a "horizontal secret cartel", cites on the one hand the companies Heliwest of Isola d'Asti, Airgreen of Turin, Elifriulia of Ronchi dei Legionari, Eliossola of Domodossola, Elitellina of Sondrio and Star Work Sky of Alessandria ( would have given life to "a single, continuous and complex agreement" concerning "the conditioning of the forest fire services market"), and from another the same companies with the addition of Babcock mission critical services international, Babcock mission critical services Italy and Air corporate (whose «agreement» would have concerned the «fixing» preventive «of the prices relating to services by helicopter» within the «Italian Helicopter Association»). Conduct in hypothesis contrary to "Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union" which prohibits "agreements between companies" such as to "prevent, limit or distort competition" in EU countries. considering the existence of "two distinct anti-competitive agreements" which aimed to condition "the tenders for fire-fighting services by helicopters "and to freeze the prices of" services ".
