August 16 (SeeNews) - Czech rolling stock manufacturer Skoda Transportation filed a complaint with the Bulgarian competition regulator on Thursday against the decision of Sofia Public Electrical Transport Company to disqualify Skoda from its tender for supply of 13 trams, according to data from the regulator's website.
Skoda Transportation was disqualified from the tender following a decision of the Commission for Protection of Competition, which was later confirmed by the Supreme Administrative Court on July 17.
The 51 million levs ($29.6 million/26.1 million euro) tender, which was launched in January 2017, attracted two offers - from Skoda Transportation and Poland's Pojazdy Szynowe PESA Bydgoszcz.
On October 12, 2017, Sofia Public Electrical Transport Company selected Skoda Transportation's offer to supply the trams for a total of 46.3 million levs. The offer of Pojazdy Szynowe PESA Bydgoszcz was priced at 44.8 million levs but was ranked lower as its technical specifications were considered inferior.
On October 25, 2017, Pojazdy Szynowe PESA Bydgoszcz filed a complaint with the anti-trust authority against the ranking of the offers.
In February 2018, the competition regulator cancelled Sofia Public Electrical Transport Company's decision regarding the ranking of offers, saying that Skoda Transportation had made a mistake in the calculation of its price offer as the sum of the individual segments was different from the presented total. Skoda Transportation challenged the competition regulator's ruling before the Supreme Administrative Court but the court upheld the decision on July 17.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)