Politico reports that three of Greece’s most important comms providers are being investigated over contracts awarded to them. They are amongst 10 businesses suspected to have colluded in the allocation of inflated contracts that were financed by a special European Union fund. The offices of Cosmote, Vodafone and Nova were raided by Greece’s competition commission last month, and a separate investigation has also been instigated by EU prosecutors. Both Vodafone and Nova have publicly admitted that they are being investigated. Nova promised full cooperation with investigators.
Greece has benefited from EUR35.95bn (USD38.56bn) of spending from the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), a fund that was established to help Europe bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic. Approximately 20 percent of this amount was earmarked for making Greece more digital, per plans submitted to the European Commission.
Research conducted by Politico reviewed 101 contracts that were financed by the RRF and won by the 10 companies being investigated. In each case, the winner faced no rival bid from any of the other nine companies. As a result, there was only one bidder for 92 of these contracts. The implication is that these companies all agreed not to bid against each other, allowing each company to submit higher bids than would otherwise stand a chance of winning.
You can read Politico’s story here.
