Georgian National Competition Agency has declared the complaint of the “Intellect Market“LTD inadmissible
The “Intellect Market” LTD has submitted the application to the National Competition Agency regarding the alleged violation of Article 6 of the Law of Georgia on Competition (Abuse of Dominant Position) by five undertakings: “Tbilisi Business House” LTD ( 3 companies with different ID numbers), “GK” LTD, “Universal Business Services” LTD.
According to the complainant, the breach occurred during participating in state tenders for the procurement of translation services announced by various agencies. In particular, the respondent companies imposed unreasonably low prices, resulting in winning tenders, then based on non-compliance, they were blacklisted, founded another company, and continued to bid at a low price expelling its competitors from the relevant market.
Based on the information provided by the complainant and the respondent, the National Statistics Office of Georgia and the State Procurement Agency, the Competition Agency has revealed that the respondent companies altogether have had a much lower market share in the market of translation services in public procurement during the last 3 years than was required by the law for the dominant position.
According to the position of the Agency, following Georgian and EU legislation as well, the action indicated by the applicant to be considered an offense, the undertaking must have a dominant position in the relevant market, and If the undertaking has not a dominant position in the relevant market, the case will not have studied under article 6 and the Agency is not authorized to assess and respond appropriately to this action. Therefore, the agency declared the complaint inadmissible and refused to initiate an investigation.
