Treatment of collusion in public procurement: a vision of the colombian case

Abstract

Collusion, meaning an illegal agreement in third party damage, which occurs

in procurement processes, is an anticompetitive agreement sanctioned

by Article 47 Section 9 of Decree 2153 of 1992 and most recently by Act

1474 of 2011 Anti-Corruption Statute -in which, by means of the latter Act,

was raised to the category of offense was punishable previously only from

the administrative point of view. However, the penalty established model

Colombian regulations, is a model of punishment that while it is quite high,

especially after the categorization of offenses of this behavior, the real problem

lies in the application of the same or better, the agency responsible for

its implementation. So, like any anticompetitive agreement, collusion is conduct that creates great effects on the market created by the State, taking into account that public procurement, competition moves to another stage of the competitive process, since here it competes by the market, meeting with a result

similar to that obtained in a monopoly situation, since that is the outcome

that maximizes total benefits that producers can obtain from the market.