Members of Bulgarian Watchdog Advised Firms on Public Procurement Act Loopholes

Two members of Bulgaria's Commission on Protection of Competition (CPC) have trained public procurement applicants how to take advantage of mistakes and omissions by contractors to appeal the deals.

Alexander Alexandrov and Elena Dimova were lecturers at private seminars on public procurement topics and they received payment for their advice, according to reports of dnevnik.bg

Apart from that, some of the firms at the seminars were already participants in procedures before the CPC because they had appealed public procurement deals.

Bulgaria's Conflict of Interest Commission studied the violations committed by Alexandrov and Dimova and ruled that they had broken the law, the CPC reported Monday.

The two committed conflict of interest also by agreeing to be listed as lecturers at the seminars in a bid to attract more participants and boost revenues from fees.

Alexandrov and Dimova received payment on the basis of contracts with the companies organizing the trainings and the tariffs included consultations with the lecturers.

The proceedings were launched on the basis of media publications, advertisements, and announcements concerning the organization of seminars and other training events in 2011 and 2012 on amendments to the Public Procurement Act and practical problems with its implementation.

These seminars were geared towards people professionally involved in the different stages of public procurement, lawyers, law firms, legal advisors, etc.

Two CPC members, Paskal Boyadzhiyski and Nikolay Nikolov signed notes of dissent, saying that no direct evidence had been presented that the participants in the seminars benefitted from the acts issued by the two CPC members.

According to dnevnik.bg, this conclusion cannot be reached because the CPC is a collective body and no concrete cases involving the participants in the seminars came under consideration.