Plasser agrees to R8.4m penalty

The Competition Commission says Plasser SA has agreed to pay R8.4m after the company admitted to collusion.

Plasser provides railway lines, track construction and maintenance services.

According to the commission, Plasser admitted to colluding with Lennings DEC Rail Service, a division of Aveng, in respect of tenders for railway construction and maintenance issued by Transnet between 1997 and 2013.

Lennings and Plasser agreed to allocate railway construction and maintenance tenders between themselves.

The commission initiated an investigation into a complaint against the two firms in February 2014.

It found that Lennings and Plasser agreed to engage in tender allocation and cover price arrangements.

The last tender subjected to this arrangement was the Dynacat tender, which was issued by the state-owned rail, port and pipeline company in 2004 and concluded in 2013.

“The agreement was that the first phase of the tender would be allocated to Plasser and the second phase would be allocated to Lennings,” the commission said.

In addition to paying the administrative penalty, Plasser undertook to refrain from contravening the Competition Act in future.

It would also implement and monitor a competition law compliance programme, the commission said.

Lennings was earlier granted leniency in line with the commission’s corporate leniency policy, the commission said.

This settlement agreement is yet to be confirmed by the Competition Tribunal.

Plasser is the local partner and agent for Austrian-based Plasser & Theurer Machinery, which designs and manufactures heavy on-track maintenance machinery.

Lennings, now known as Aveng Rail, builds a sophisticated range of rail machinery and constructs and maintains railway lines for rail clients.