VUT in Brno received a million-euro fine for a non-transparent contract

Brno - The Brno University of Technology made errors in 2011 in the tender for the construction of the Research Center for Information Technologies. It received a million-dollar fine from the Office for the Protection of Competition (UOHS). This has now been confirmed by UOHS chairman Petr Rafaj. CTK found out from the agency's website. The university is considering filing a lawsuit with the Regional Court in Brno.
    According to the office, the university's procedure was non-transparent. It was unclear how VUT arrived at the results of the evaluation of the bids within the evaluation criterion related to the quality plan. Its approach became, according to the office, unreviewable and could significantly influence the selection of the most suitable bid.
    "No document prepared during the procurement process indicates why the applicants were assigned the corresponding number of points, how the quality plans of the applicants differed in the relevant chapters, and which of the implementations better meets the conditions of the assignment and for what reason," Rafaj stated in the decision.
    According to Zdeněk Bouša, the vice-dean of the Faculty of Information Technologies at VUT, the university is considering filing an administrative lawsuit. "I think we acted cautiously in the tender and ensured that the selected bid was the most economically advantageous," Bouša stated. According to him, the competition had multiple evaluation criteria, so it was not only the price that mattered. The Ministry of Education approached the UOHS with the initiative, which now threatens to reduce VUT's grant by five percent.
    The contract was eventually awarded to the company IMOS Brno. Its bid in the selection process was 150 million crowns excluding VAT.
    The Research Center for Information Technologies has been operational since last year. It is located in the campus of the Brno University of Technology in Královo Pole. The Brno center is part of a larger project, IT4Innovations. Its goal is to establish a national center of excellence in research in the field of information technologies. The entire project has five entities, besides VUT, three in Ostrava and the Silesian University in Opava. Part of the project also includes the procurement of the powerful supercomputer Anselm.