Companies’ representatives who entered into illegal agreements to participate in auctions and succeeded in winning contracts in the public sector were sentenced

The evidence collected by the Office of the Attorney General, through the Office of Financial Investigations, revealed an illegal model in which several companies agreed to participate in public auctions and pretended free competition and succeeded in winning supply contracts for stationery materials for public institutions.

A criminal judge in Bogotá took the evidence into consideration and sentenced Ricardo Méndez Mora to 48 months in prison as a co-author of agreements that had as their object the restriction of  competition, on the understanding that he acted as the author of the illegal scheme.

The decision also involved three employees of the defendant who were sentenced to 36 months in prison as accomplices. They are Hermes David Arévalo Pissa, Luis Fernando Bayona Mora and Fabián Schineider Franco.

These four people pleaded guilty to the charges brought by the Office of the Attorney General. The judge considered that, as these were offenses committed against the public administration, the defendants had no benefits. In this sense, they must serve the sentence in prison as soon as the emergency decreed on Covid-19 ends.