Fair Trade Commission imposes fines on 4 companies for collusion in KEPCO unmanned security system bidding

[Asia Economy Sejong=Reporter Dongwoo Lee] The Fair Trade Commission announced on the 14th that it has decided to impose corrective orders and a total fine of 44 million KRW on four companies that colluded in the unmanned security system bidding of Korea Electric Power Corporation.

According to the Fair Trade Commission, during the unmanned security system bidding conducted by Korea Electric Power Corporation from July 2018 to December 2019, four companies?Vutek Co., Ltd., Dinosys Co., Ltd., Haesol P&C Co., Ltd., and HMC Co., Ltd.?agreed and executed the planned winning bidder and bid prices for each bid to prevent bid failure due to single bidding and price competition.

An unmanned security system for substations refers to a system that integrates and operates surveillance information such as CCTV footage and access control records of all unmanned substations through the integrated control device of the power branch dispatch substation. It requires considerable initial development costs and time, and has characteristics that make participation difficult for anyone other than a business operator who can resolve compatibility issues between the old and new systems.

These four companies colluded through phone calls, emails, and text messages during the relevant period, participated in 14 unmanned security system bids issued by Korea Electric Power Corporation, and won 13 of them.

The Fair Trade Commission decided to impose corrective orders and a total fine of 44 million KRW on these four companies for violating the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act.

The Fair Trade Commission stated, "We recognized and detected the secretly maintained collusion in the public institution’s self-ordered area through the bid collusion analysis system and sanctioned it ex officio," adding, "In the future, we will continuously monitor the public procurement bidding market through the bid collusion sign analysis system and respond promptly if signs of collusion are detected."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.