The Competition Tribunal partially accepted a lawsuit by Sonda S.A. (“Sonda”) against Servicio de Registro Civil e Identificación (“Registro Civil”), declaring that the latter infringed the first paragraph of article 3 of D.L. N° 211, by performing authority acts that restricted competition in tender N° 594-56-LP08, referred to the “System for identification, identity and travel documents and related services for Servicio de Registro Civil e Identificación” (the “Tender”). In particular, the Tribunal reproached the exclusion of Sonda from the Tender, by Exempt Resolution N° 3,492 of 2011, which declared this company’s technical proposal as ineligible, regarding its accreditation of experience in similar projects. According to the Tribunal’s majority decision, this exclusion was discriminatory and restricted competition in the Tender, since it contemplated a relative qualification of the proposal, and was designed as a process that finished with a mutual comparison of all the bids. The Tribunal dismissed the rest of Sonda’s accusations, given that they could not be qualified as acts that hindered, restricted or prevented competition or could tend to produce those effects, according to the merits of the case. The Tribunal fined Registro Civil with 200 Annual Tax Units (approximately US$ 192,000) and dismissed the plaintiff’s request to annul, or to order to annul, awarding the Tender to Morpho, as well as to annul the contract between Morpho and Registro Civil that was celebrated by virtue of said adjudication.
Judge Depolo held a minority ruling, regarding the amount of the fine and the decision to not annul awarding Morpho the Tender and not to annul the contract between Morpho and Registro Civil. Judge Domper held a minority ruling, regarding (i) economic considerations related to the need of the tenderers to commit to the weighing rules that are determined in the tender bases, and (ii) additional arguments to dismiss Sonda’s request to annul awarding Morpho the tender and the related contract.