“Combat” against competition crime and COVID-19 - German Competition Register and VCI Emergency Platform for vaccination equipment are online
The Federal Cartel Office (“FCO”) has recently launched the German Competition Register for Public Procurement (“Competition Register”) and approved the participation if pharmaceutical wholesalers in the VCI Emergency Platform for vaccination equipment - two important steps in fighting white-collar crime and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Competition Register online
On the basis of the Competition Register Act of July 2017, the FCO established the Competition Register - the first fully digitalised German administrative register which provides public contracting and concession providing authorities information on whether a bidding company must be or can be excluded from a public tender proceeding due to committed white collar crimes. Contracting authorities, who have so far been largely dependent on the information provided by the bidding companies, by consulting the Competition Register will now be able to verify the existence of exclusion grounds within the meaning of Section 123 and Section 124 of the Act against Restraints of Competition (“ARC”). The Competition Register, therefore, will contribute from now on to the combat on white-collar crime, also rising expectations of enhanced compliance among bidding companies and an elevated protection of fair competition related to public contracts and concessions.
The first step will be now to register the 30.000 public German bodies before public prosecutors and other authorities will feed the Competition Register with information on companies which became conspicuous for non-compliant conduct. The FCO stated, however, that protection of the confidential data stored in the Competition Register has a high priority. To register the contracting authorities, the Federal Cartel Office will successively contact several groups so that the enquiries of contracting authorities in the Competition Register can be processed as promptly as possible within a bundle.
Further information on the new Competition Register can be found on the FCO’s homepage (available in German). The press release can be found here (German and English).
VCI Emergency Platform for vaccination equipment
Another field of combat on which the FCO is fighting is the COVID-19 pandemic which is more than ever a pressing problem in particular due to the faltering vaccination campaigns in European countries. In order to support the vaccination process in Germany, the so called “VCI Emergency Platform for Vaccination Equipment” (“VCI Platform”), founded by the German Chemical Industry Association (“Verband der chemischen Industrie”) in order to improve the anti COVID-19 vaccination process, is now also accessible for big pharmaceutical wholesalers due to the FCO’s approval. The competition authority, in particular, expects an optimization of the distribution of vaccination equipment needed for the fight against COVID-19.
The wholesalers’ participation will, in particular, allow the cooperation of the latter with pharmacies in the field of vaccination equipment supply. As stated by Andreas Mundt, the president of the FCO, and also supported by the German government both will play now an important role in the vaccination process, e.g. by providing complete vaccination sets (e.g. composed of vaccines and required vaccination equipment) to the registered German doctors all over the country. In Mundt’s view, the VCI Platform would, therefore, help improving the supply situation, in particular, in view of the expected increase of vaccine availability in the near future.
The cooperation via the VCI platform, particularly, shall prevent possible supply shortages and misallocations at the vaccination centres by allowing coordination and an exchange of information on the supply situation between the federal states and manufacturers, and, which after the FCO’s approval will now also include big pharmaceutical wholesalers and pharmacies. By way of the VCI platform an adequate transparency shall be granted to all involved players which, however, does not mean that the transparency will go beyond what is necessary to improve the efficiency of supply with vaccination equipment. Therefore, the VCI platform will not provide details on prices and quantities. Furthermore, the duration of the VCI Platform will be limited to the current emergency situation. The FCO’s press release can be found here (in German and English).
For more information please contact Marcio da Silva Lima and Maren Steiert.
