7 Jul, 2022 @ 14:59
1 min read

Dirty diggers: Six of Spain’s construction giants fined €204 million and banned from public tenders after collusion

Excavator On The Road Construction Works. Machinery Needed For C
Excavator on the road construction works. Machinery needed for construction

SOME of Spain’s biggest construction companies have been fined €204 million for collusion over public contracts.

Spain’s antitrust regulator said the six firms had illegally shared information on bids for public projects over a period of 25 years.

These were often for major infrastructure projects such as roads and airports, but also affected bids at a smaller local level.

A spokesman for the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) said that the companies will also be banned from working with public authorities.

Excavator On The Road Construction Works. Machinery Needed For C
Road projects were some of those affected. Photo: Adobe Stock

The guilty companies are some of the biggest names in the country with the highest penalties handed to Dragados (fined €57.1 million), FCC Construccion (€40.4 million), and Ferrovial Construccion (€38.5 million).

The others are Acciona Construccion (€29.4 million), Obrasco Huarte Lain, (€21.5 million) and Sacyr Construccion (€16.7 million).

A spokesman for Dragados said the company disagreed with the decision and pledged to appeal it.

The regulator claimed that between 1992 and 2017, the companies met weekly to discuss which projects they were going to bid on.

The meeting would then devise a common strategy and share technical documents between them.

This, said the regulator, affected bidding on thousands of construction projects advertised by public authorities throughout Spain, with fewer competing bids submitted and competing companies being put at a disadvantage.

The regulator called their actions a ‘very serious infringement’ of Spanish and European competition laws which foster secret and independent bidding processes.

READ MORE:

EXPLAINED: How Andalucia’s new land law reform could allow construction of homes on rural land across southern Spain

Dilip Kuner

Dilip Kuner is a NCTJ-trained journalist whose first job was on the Folkestone Herald as a trainee in 1988.
He worked up the ladder to be chief reporter and sub editor on the Hastings Observer and later news editor on the Bridlington Free Press.
At the time of the first Gulf War he started working for the Sunday Mirror, covering news stories as diverse as Mick Jagger’s wedding to Jerry Hall (a scoop gleaned at the bar at Heathrow Airport) to massive rent rises at the ‘feudal village’ of Princess Diana’s childhood home of Althorp Park.
In 1994 he decided to move to Spain with his girlfriend (now wife) and brought up three children here.
He initially worked in restaurants with his father, before rejoining the media world in 2013, working in the local press before becoming a copywriter for international firms including Accenture, as well as within a well-known local marketing agency.
He joined the Olive Press as a self-employed journalist during the pandemic lock-down, becoming news editor a few months later.
Since then he has overseen the news desk and production of all six print editions of the Olive Press and had stories published in UK national newspapers and appeared on Sky News.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Boris Johnson Resignation
Previous Story

How Boris Johnson’s resignation is being reported in the Spanish media

Watsons Real Estate La Marina Urbanisation
Next Story

Meet the real estate specalists: Watsons in Alicante’s La Marina Urbanisation

Latest from Business & Finance

Go toTop