Unlawful purchase of vehicle recovery services by police

For several years the police operated without a framework agreement for their recurring requirement for vehicle recovery services. The authority’s failure to procure new framework agreements to replace old ones as they expired meant that there were no framework agreements in place for a period that extended principally from 2017 to 2020. During this period the authority instead assigned individual assignments to providers of vehicle recovery services without having first published them in accordance with the Public Procurement Act.

The Swedish Competition Authority is of the view that the Swedish Police Authority has performed an illegal direct award of contract and assesses the value of the procurement at approximately SEK 30 million.

 “A procuring authority must have routines in place to ensure that the organisation complies with the law on public procurement. In the absence of proper supervision of its agreements, the authority risks purchases being more expensive. It will in addition be more difficult to follow up the quality of the services provided,” says the Swedish Competition Authority’s director general, Rikard Jermsten.

The Swedish Competition Authority is now referring the matter to the Administrative Court in Stockholm with a demand that the Swedish Police Authority pay SEK 2 million by way of a procurement fine.

For further information, contact:

Marie Strömberg Lindvall, Communications Officer, +46 (0)76-542 15 92, Marie.StrombergLindvall@kkv.se
Maria Andersson Müller, Legal Counsel, +46 (0)8-700 15 65, Maria.AnderssonMuller@kkv.se

Read the application, dnr 371/2021 (in Swedish)