The Swedish Competition Authority (Konkurrensverket) has ordered the Port of Gothenburg to pay SEK1.7 million (US$190,000) in fines after a local court found that the latter had carried out an illegal direct procurement of a service concession of a port terminal.
Konkurrensverket said last week that the Port of Gothenburg entered into a lease agreement for the operation of the Arken intermodal terminal. After a review, a court found that the lease agreement was a service concession that should have been procured according to procurement rules.
The authority added that during the work to get a new agreement in place, and to secure the ongoing operation of the terminal, the port carried out an illegal direct procurement.
In the decision, Konkurrensverket stated that the Port of Gothenburg breached the Act on the Procurement of Concessions (LUK) when it directly procured the temporary contract for the operation of the Arken intermodal terminal. The value of the agreement amounted to SEK24 million (US$2.7 million).
The background to Konkurrensverket's decision is that the Port of Gothenburg entered into a lease agreement in 2022 that gave a supplier the right to use the terminal. The lease agreement in question was reviewed and declared invalid by the court, which concluded that it was a concession agreement covered by LUK and should have been advertised.
Konkurrensverket said that while the Port of Gothenburg carried out an announced procurement of a concession agreement, a direct procurement of a temporary agreement was made to secure the operation of the terminal. The company had believed that the direct award could be carried out on the basis of the procurement rules' exemption from the obligation to advertise due to special reasons.
The fact that the Port of Gothenburg was left without an agreed supplier for the operation of the terminal after the court had annulled the previous agreement is due to the fact that the company incorrectly classified the agreement as a lease agreement.
According to Konkurrensverket, the error of assessment is not a circumstance that makes it possible to subsequently award direct contracts on the basis of the procurement rules' exemption for exceptional reasons.
"Before a contract is concluded, a procuring organisation must always carry out a thorough legal examination of the content of the contract in order to form an opinion of whether it is covered by procurement legislation," said Marie Östman, Director General of Konkurrensverket.
