The agency confirmed the legality of the contract with GLONASS developers

The Rybinsk supplier of computer equipment and software, Infor LLC, was unable to challenge the State Committee for Transport and Road Facilities of Bashkiria against the results of the competition, in which the Moscow-based M2M Telematics LLC was recognized as the operator of automated passenger transport monitoring systems. The complaint of Infor, which offered a price almost three times lower than the winner, was recognized as unfounded by the antimonopoly service.

The regional department of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (UFAS) refused to satisfy Infor LLC's complaint to the State Transport Committee of the Republic, recognizing it as unfounded, the department told Kommersant yesterday. The company contacted the antimonopoly service in early November and asked to cancel the results of the competition to select an operator for an automated monitoring system for passenger transport, held by the department at the end of October.

The initial price of the contract was estimated at 29.5 million rubles. The winner of the competition was the Moscow company M2M Telematics LLC, which offered to complete it for 29.4 million, while the Rybinsk Infor reduced the price to 10 million.

• M2M Telematics LLC is part of the group of companies of the same name operating in the satellite monitoring market. 51% of M2M Telematics LLC through OJSC Navigation Information Systems (NIS, the federal operator of domestic GLONASS navigation systems) belongs to Sitronics LLC (JSFC Sistema), OJSC Concern Radiotechnical and Information Systems, Federal State Unitary Enterprise Rossiysky Research Institute of Space Instrumentation".

In June 2011, the government of Bashkortostan and OJSC NIS agreed on the comprehensive implementation of the GLONASS system in the region. Regional authorities hope to use it to streamline the passenger transportation market, automate traffic management and introduce control over the movement of heavy vehicles on the roads.

The Rybinsk company filed a complaint with the Federal Antimonopoly Service, indicating that the state customer had violated the Federal Law “On the Protection of Competition” and “On the Placement of Orders... for State and Municipal Needs.” According to her, “M2M telematics” was the developer of the Technical Project under another contract with the State Transport Committee of Bashkiria and, thus, had access to the tender documentation” even before its official publication. In addition, the complaint said, “it was impossible to determine what the members of the competition commission were guided by when assigning this or that number of points.”

“The conditions of the competition were formulated in such a way that they contain certain informal values that are left to the discretion of the commission members. They can give any points and are not required to justify them,” Mikhail Kirechko, the owner and director of Infor, was indignant in a conversation with Kommersant yesterday.

An interlocutor at the Federal Antimonopoly Service noted that “violations during the preparation and conduct of the competition were recognized by the commission as not affecting its results.”

Mr. Kirechko said that “he will most likely appeal the decision of the antimonopoly service in court.”

The State Transport Committee, in turn, expressed satisfaction with this decision. “We fully complied with Federal Law 94, and the antimonopoly service confirmed that we were right,” Andrei Bykovsky, deputy chairman of the committee, told Kommersant. Commenting on the decision of the competition commission, which he headed, Mr. Bykovsky noted that “the price of the contract is an important factor, but not the most important one.” “In this case, the qualifications and experience of the personnel of the company that will execute the contract are much more important,” the official concluded.

Arthur Asafiev

Goskomtrans withdrew from the competition