Good morning! Eleven companies were found guilty of rigging public bidding processes in São Paulo—including big names such as Alstom and Bombardier. The pension reform reaches its final stage in the House. Brazil’s democracy to get more expensive. Brazil to auction mining areas.
Alstom, Bombardier guilty of forming a cartel
Brazil’s antitrust regulator Cade found 11 companies guilty of fixing prices and rigging public bidding processes—including big names such as Alstom and Bombardier. They defrauded 27 subway and train projects in São Paulo, Brasília, Minas Gerais, and Rio Grande do Sul. Cade blacklisted the companies from public contracts for five years, and slapped the firms with combined fines of BRL 515m. Forty-two executives and engineers who ran the scheme will have to pay BRL 19m combined.
Despite being part of the ring, German industrial equipment maker Siemens was spared—as it collaborated with the investigation, which started six years ago.
According to Cade, the evidence showed the companies had divided the states in which some of them would dominate contracts—fixing prices and creating consortiums with the sole purpose of assuring each company would win contracts on their “turf.” This system operated...