CEO Iskandar Ismail said this marked the first-ever final judgement for the quasi legal entity for collusion by bid cartels.
Apart from this cartel, he said, the agency is also investigating 500 companies involved in 20 cases in procurement valued at a total of RM2 billion.
“It’ll be challenging but fortunately the investigation is going well but we have to prioritise the cases going forward,” Iskandar told a media conference.
“The silver lining is that there is no time limit for us to take action,” he said.
However, the agency is limited to taking only those cases that came after 2012, the year the Competition Act 2010 was gazetted.
Iskandar said the case involving the eight companies was brought to MyCC’s attention by the National Academy of Arts, Culture and Heritage Malaysia (Aswara).
“Aswara had found suspicious elements in the tender bids and the requests for quotations that it received for four IT-related projects in 2015 and 2016,” he said.
The agency’s investigations revealed that the eight companies in two separate cartels had colluded to rig the bidding in four of the procurement processes.
In one cartel were Tuah Packet Sdn Bhd, Caliber Interconnects Sdn Bhd, Aliran Digital Sdn Bhd and ViaMED Sdn Bhd.
The second group comprised Novatis Resources Sdn Bhd, Silver Tech Synergy Sdn Bhd, Venture Nucleus (M) Sdn Bhd and Basenet Technology Sdn Bhd.
Under the Competition Act, companies are liable to a penalty of up to 10% of their annual revenue for the year the offence was committed.
MyCC stated that Tuah packet was fined RM224,589.13, Caliber Interconnects RM301,822.45, Aliran Digital RM32,471.26, ViaMED RM95,512.17, Novatis Resources RM414,829.38, Silver Tech Synergy RM14,836.26, Venture Nucleus RM320,848.46 and Basenet Technology RM143,283.24.
Apart from the financial penalty, it has also recommended that these firms be suspended from participating in future public procurement processes for a period of five years.
To enhance its efficiency against bid rigging, the CEO hopes to enhance its leniency regime to encourage more companies to come forward and help them uncover such collusion in the public procurement process.
Iskandar revealed that the objective is to waive the financial penalty for the first company to come clean with the bid rigging activities, regardless of its role in the cartel.
Under the current leniency regime, companies that come forward to help uncover bid rigging practices can be given a discount of up to 100% of the financial penalty imposed, although ringleaders in the collusion might only get only a 50% discount if they do so.
Since the agency’s inception in 2012, Iskandar said, only five companies have came forward to take up the leniency offer.
Moving forward, he sees the regime as a means to uncover more bid rigging activities.
“We now have only 30 investigators to examine 500 companies. We have appealed to the government for more staff and resources to eliminate bid rigging practice in the country,” he added.
CLICK HERE FOR THE LATEST DATA ON THE COVID-19 SITUATION IN MALAYSIA