A conference called “Bid Rigging - Myth or Real Threat” took place on 20 June 2016 in Warsaw at the Conference Centre of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection. It was organised by the Polish National Committee of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC Poland) in cooperation with the Polish-German Chamber of Industry and Trade, the British-Polish Chamber of Commerce and the Italian Chamber of Trade and Industry in Poland. The conference brought together more than a hundred business people, lawyers and academics. It served as a springboard for discussions on the need to ensure that public tender procedures are competitive in view of the new amendments to Public Procurement Law, while not depriving businesses of the possibility of cooperating effectively in tender procedures.

While opening the conference, Wojciech Kowalewski, the Chairman of the ICC Poland Competition Commission stressed that businesses, even if they are competitors, are often having to work together in today’s global economy. That cooperation may, however, give rise to various types of risks, and in some cases may breach the thin line between what is permissible and what is illegal.

The debate provided an opportunity to exchange views on the point where public procurement law meets competition law and it was joined by representatives of the Public Procurement Office and the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, as well as by experts and practitioners of public procurement and competition law: Dr Izabela Fundowicz (Head of the Jurisprudence Analysis Department of the Public Procurement Office), Agata Zawłocka-Turno, (Director of the Competition Protection Department at the OCCP), Robert Siwik (Polish-German Chamber of Industry and Trade), Iwona Terlecka and Dr Piotr Bogdanowicz (Clifford Chance), Sabina Famirska (Wardyński & Partners), Jan Roliński and Aleksander Stawicki (Wierciński, Kwieciński, Baehr), Marcin Trepka and Piotr Kunicki (K&L Gates), Michael Dembiński (British-Polish Chamber of Commerce), Anna Jędrzejewska (PORR Infrastructure), Teresa Sienkiewicz (Salini Impregilo and Salini Polska), Jacek Półrolniczak (IT market consultant).

The themes that aroused the most debate were bidding consortia and the sharing of capability, which, in some circumstances, may be deemed unlawful tender collusion. The debate’s participants’ emphasised the lack of uniformity of approach on those issues across various state authorities’ and in how they classify them, and this included the PPO, OCCP, the prosecutor’s office and other law enforcement agencies. Participants also discussed the need for a Code of Good Practice in public procurement law and its possible impact on changing the behaviour of participants of tender procedures and how they are viewed by state authorities that deal with this area.

In her summing up address, the OCCP Vice-President, Bernadeta Kasztelan-Świetlik, stressed OCCP’s mission as a regulator that pursues illegal bid-rigging. She also highlighted the need to balance entrepreneurs’ natural desire to win orders with the need to ensure competitive tendering procedures.