Prague was fined 2.6 million CZK for the contract for the completion of the Industrial Palace

Brno - The Office for the Protection of Competition (ÚOHS) punished Prague with a fine of 2.6 million crowns for errors in the procurement of a contract for the reconstruction and completion of the Industrial Palace. The sanction was confirmed by the chairman of the office, Petr Mlsna, to whom the capital city submitted an appeal. ÚOHS informed about this in a press release. The fine is final and the capital city must pay it. The decision of the chairman of ÚOHS can be challenged by filing an administrative lawsuit with the Regional Court in Brno, but this does not delay the obligation to pay the fine. According to outgoing deputy Pavel Vyhnánek (Prague Sobě), the Prague City Hall will likely appeal, considering the fine to be unjustified.

According to ÚOHS, Prague had disproportionate qualification requirements for contractors in relation to the complexity and scope of the work in the tender. For example, it required that the main restorer in the contractor's team have experience from a similar position on at least two contracts, each of which involved the restoration of polychrome and non-polychrome sculptural artworks made of stone and stucco or wood worth at least ten million crowns. "This amount significantly exceeded the financial volume of the restoration work planned in connection with the reconstruction of the Industrial Palace," stated ÚOHS in the press release.

Prague submitted an appeal against the office's decision to chairman Petr Mlsna, but he rejected it. "If the contracting authority demands proof of experience with performance worth ten million crowns from this person, its requirement is not reasonable if this person will oversee work worth less than the volume of work with which they should have the required experience," Mlsna stated.

He also rejected the objection regarding the excessive amount of the fine, which could have reached up to 264 million crowns under the law, but the imposed amount is at the level of one percent of the maximum possible fine.

"We received the ÚOHS decision just a short while ago and are now reviewing it together with our lawyers. We will subsequently consider further steps, not ruling out the filing of an administrative lawsuit. Primarily because the office is sanctioning us for allegedly strict qualification criteria, regarding which even the restorer association does not agree on their adequacy. Another interesting fact is that no participants in the selection process disputed the qualification criteria for restorers, and they were brought up only after the bid submission deadlines by a law firm unknown to us," said Vyhnánek.

According to him, there could have been no discrimination in the selection of the contractor. "It is crucial for us that the construction is ongoing, because any delays in the selection of the contractor due to inflation and prices for the city would mean tens to hundreds of millions of crowns in additional costs," added Vyhnánek.