Romania’s Agency for Payments and Intervention for Agriculture (APIA) has initiated a tender for maintenance, expansion and development of its IT system.

The three-year contract is estimated at RON 97.4 million (EUR 21.3 million), without VAT, reports local Profit.ro. The offers will be opened in the second part of September.

At the end of June, the Competition Council fined local IT firms Siveco Romania and Intrarom with EUR 1.5 million for rigging a tender organized by APIA in 2008 to contract expansion and development services for its IT system. The two IT companies rigged the auction in order to get the EUR 12 million contract, according to the competition authorities.

Intrarom received a fine of RON 2.1 million (EUR 465,000) whereas Siveco got a fine of RON 5.88 million (EUR 1.2 million).

Romania’s anti-trust body couldn’t find strong evidence about the misconduct of the other two companies that took part in the respective auction, namely IBM Romania and Teamnet International.

editor@romania-insider.com