Competition investigates an alleged school transport cartel that distributed public contracts

The National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) has opened an investigation into an alleged cartel in the bus sector that could have established agreements for the distribution of the public road passenger transport service in tenders. According to reports from the regulatory body, the scene of the events would fall within the scope of the school transport in Castilla-La Mancha.

In this way, between October 6 and 8, Competition inspected the headquarters of several operating entities in this sectorwhose identity has not yet been revealed. These inspections represent a preliminary step before the possible opening of a sanctioning file, and do not prejudge the result of the investigation or the guilt of the affected companies.

It should be remembered that agreements between competitors constitute a very serious infringement of competition regulations (LDC), which may lead to fines of up to 10% of the companies’ total turnover. The investigation of cartels constitutes one of the CNMC’s priorities for action due to the seriousness of its consequences on consumers and the functioning of markets.

In these cases, the institution led by Cani Fernández has a clemency program which allows companies and associations that are part of a cartel to benefit from exemption from paying the fine, as long as they provide evidence that helps detect it. It also allows companies that provide information with significant added value, once the investigation has begun, to benefit from a reduction in the fine. Furthermore, lThe companies requesting leniency are excluded from the prohibition of contracting with the public sector.

It so happens that Competition already sanctioned two cartels formed by companies in 2021 of passenger transport in the autonomous community of Cantabria, through which they adopted market sharing and non-competition agreements. And, four years ago, also fined a cartel of 34 companies and the Balearic Transport Business Federation (FEBT) 9.17 million euros for agreeing prices and distributing school routes from public tenders of the Government of the Balearic Islands.