Fighting cartels in public procurement requires 21st century tools. The Hungarian Competition Authority (GVH) and the Public Procurement Authority of Hungary (KH) cooperate to promote fair competition in public procurement procedures. KH runs a mobile application named “Daily public procurement”, which serves as a news channel, providing daily updates for the parties interested in public procurement. The app is available both on iOS and Android free of charge from May 2017.
Based on the cooperation, GVH tips are available in the “Daily-tip” menu on a weekly basis for the year 2018, and the app users could also subscribe for push notifications. With these tips, GVH aims at assisting on the one hand the contracting authorities to identify cartels and create a hostile environment for them, and on the other hand the small and medium sized enterprises to avoid and recognize cartel behavior. In general, GVH intends to develop competition culture in connection with public procurement cartels. This cooperation forms a part of GVH’s anti-cartel communication strategy that was initiated in 2015. GVH has launched a specific site and published information booklets on the subject matter since then. Such booklets are also available in the “Daily-tip” menu in the app.
The app is rated 4.8 out of 5 star in the Google App Store.
By Rita Parkanyi, Partner, KCG Partners Law Firm
