CHAIRMAN MET WITH KAUNAS MAYOR TO DISCUSS COMPETITION LAW ISSUES

The Competition Council‘s Chairman Šarūnas Keserauskas (hereinafter – Chairman) met with Visvaldas Matijošaitis, Mayor of Kaunas City Municipality (hereinafter – Municipality), to discuss competition law issues and suggest solutions to competition problems in the Municipality.

The Chairman began the meeting by talking about the investigations related to competition restricting decisions whereby the Municipality authorised its municipal company Kapinių priežiūra to provide the services of cemetery maintenance and burial organisation (hereinafter – Services) without a competitive procedure and thus discriminated against other undertakings. Municipality also failed to comply with the Council‘s obligation to create non-discriminatory conditions for undertakings willing to provide municipal waste collection and transportation services in Kaunas. In both cases the Municipality ignored the Law on Competition and granted privileges to municipal companies.

Market study conducted by the Council in 2015 confirmed that the problems in the sector of municipal waste collection and transportation services do exist. The findings showed that municipal waste collection and transportation services provided by the municipal company UAB Kauno švara are 45 per cent more expensive in the city of Kaunas than in Kaunas district. According to the Chairman, an open competitive procedure might solve this problem. Moreover, the Chairman offered to help the Municipality comply with state aid requirements by providing training and consultations.

The Municipality was also encouraged to ensure proper public procurement procedures and refer to the Council if any suspicion regarding potential restrictions of competition arises. In this way the Council and the Municipality could both seek that public procurement brings maximum benefits to the Municipality‘s residents.