Motion for revision no. JOG/59/2024

In its decision no. 29022/320-6/2024.bü, the Major Crimes Department of the Anti-Corruption and Economic Crimes Division at the National Bureau of Investigation, part of the Rapid Response and Special Police Service, dismissed the complaint filed on the suspicion of agreement in restraint of competition in public procurement and concession procedures, as the reported act is not a criminal offence.

The Integrity Authority has filed a motion for revision against the investigating authority’s decision dismissing the complaint, proposing the abrogation of the investigating authority’s decision and the initiation of an investigation.

An article published on an online portal, which serves as the foundation for the complaint in the case, reports that a bureau, acting as a budgetary authority, has concluded 951 central framework agreements since 2015, based on which state actors signed contracts totaling HUF 1,360 billion during the same period for communication and event organisation tasks. According to the article, about 73% of the value of these contracts is attributable to the companies of a single individual. Furthermore, an investigation of the overall public procurement amounts and the revenue of the companies in question reveals that the vast majority of the revenue of companies that have won the most contracts on the tenders of the bureau in question is provided by government contracts.

According to the Authority’s motion for revision filed on 3 July 2024, the decision dismissing the complaint and the published anonymised file register indicate that the investigating authority did not carry out substantial investigative actions in the case, having confined its investigation to the allegations in the complaint and the contents of the online article it was based on before proceeding to dismiss the complaint without carrying out any further substantial investigative action.

Considering also the significant amount of national wealth involved in the case, the Authority believes it is necessary to order an investigation to confirm whether there was any indication that the bureau failed to ensure real competition in the centralised public procurement procedure(s) and set the eligibility and other criteria in a manner that only a few market participants – typically any one of the companies of the individual mentioned in the article – were able to meet, an outcome that could not have successfully come about in the public procurement procedures without the coordinated conduct of the winning and other tenderers.

According to the Authority, an investigation is also required to confirm whether other tenders were submitted in the public procurement procedures won by a company owned by the individual mentioned in the article, how many of the submitted tenders were invalid, what was the reason for their invalidation, and whether there is a suspicion of overpricing regarding the tender prices of the winning tenderer, and if so, whether it should have been picked up by the contracting authority.

The public prosecutor’s office has found the motion for revision submitted by the Authority well-substantiated, abrogated the investigating authority’s decision, and ordered an investigation.