The court confirmed the fine of 70,000 CZK, which the Office for the Protection of Competition (ÚOHS) imposed on Prague 1 for dividing the contract

Brno - The Regional Court in Brno today upheld the fine of CZK 70,000 that the Czech Office for the Protection of Competition (ÚOHS) imposed on the Prague 1 municipality in 2021. The court's spokesperson Klára Belkovová informed ČTK about the dismissal of the lawsuit. The reason for the fine was the division of a contract for the project documentation for the revitalization of the so-called Anenský Triangle near Smetanovo embankment and the reconstruction of Anenské Square. ČTK is trying to obtain a statement from the municipal district.

The ÚOHS imposed the fine on the municipal district in September 2021, and the municipality responded by filing an appeal with the head of ÚOHS, Petr Mlsna. He dismissed the appeal in November of the same year, and thus the municipal district had to pay the fine. It defended itself by filing an administrative lawsuit with the Regional Court in Brno, which sided with ÚOHS and dismissed the lawsuit today.

The office punished the leadership of the municipal district for entering into six contracts for various project works related to the revitalization of the area known as Anenský Triangle and the reconstruction of Anenské Square with TaK Architects between 2016 and 2018, with a total value of CZK 2,588,500.

The office stated that the contracts related to design work, including surveys and the preparation of project documentation at various levels and stages, as well as the performance of related engineering activities, constitute one functional whole and are temporally related. Therefore, the municipality should have awarded the work as a single public contract in some type of procurement procedure. By failing to do so and concluding contracts for individual parts of the public contract without a procurement procedure, it could have influenced the selection of the contractor.

After the municipality was unsuccessful with its lawsuit at the Regional Court in Brno, it can challenge the court's ruling with a cassation complaint to the Supreme Administrative Court.