The State Automated System of the Russian Federation “Elections” (GAS “Vybory”) is a headache for Ella Pamfilova, chairperson of the Central Election Commission. and her predecessor Vladimir Churov.
A system designed to make voting fair and transparent succumbs to the human factor. Then almost a hundred different polling stations show an almost identical percentage of votes for the candidacy of Vyacheslav Volodin. Then in Voronezh, the head of the election commission is caught entering false data into the system. And now there are complaints about the equipment used by the CEC. Or rather, not even to the equipment as such, but to the procedures for its purchase.
The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS, headed by Igor Artemiev) opened a case on suspicion of cartel conspiracy against six suppliers of computer equipment – Business Computers Group LLC, AMI-Network LLC, Krok Incorporated CJSC, Superwave Group LLC, CJSC Craftway Corporation PLS, LLC Production Company Aquarius.
The FAS suspects that these companies entered into an anti-competitive agreement by participating in an electronic auction for the supply of equipment for GAS Vybory. The auction was held by the FGKU “Federal Center for Informatization under the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation” (FCI CEC). During the auction, out of six organizations admitted to bidding, only two bids were submitted, FAS writes: “Business Computers Group” and “Superwave Group”. They reduced the initial price of the contract by only 1%. These companies offered Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Lenovo system units at auction, respectively. Now, suspecting HP and Lenovo of a cartel agreement, the FAS is checking the results of more than a dozen auctions worth 1 billion rubles, Vedomosti reports.
At the same time, Russian manufacturers Kraftway and Aquarius refused to offer their prices, despite preferences as suppliers of domestic equipment. The FAS refers to the order of the Ministry of Economic Development, according to which, during the auction, the price declared by the Russian supplier when comparing bids is reduced by 15%, but if he wins, he is paid the full amount indicated in the bid.
“Analysis of electronic correspondence received during unscheduled inspections of organizations, as well as other documents and information, allowed us to conclude that there are signs of an agreement aimed at maintaining the price of the contract,” Andrey Tenishev, head of the anti-cartel department, is quoted in the FAS report. The contract has already been executed and the results of the auction cannot be canceled, says the representative of the FAS.
Kraftway President Alexei Kravtsov says that the company has not received an official notification from the FAS about the initiation of the case. Kravtsov explained the refusal of the auction by the experience of cooperation with the FCI CEC: once, small discrepancies in the equipment supplied led to the termination of the contract with the payment of penalties in the amount of about 40 million rubles. Therefore, the company decided not to risk it, because it was not sure that it could produce the equipment on time.
LLC “Business Computer Group” is headed by Valery Bordyuzha, rector of the private West Ural Institute of Economics and Law. The businessman has a doctoral degree, but more often he presents himself as an “academician of the Academy of Security, Defense and Law Enforcement Problems” – a criminal and corruption group previously exposed by the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation. Bordyuzha owns 90% of the company, the remaining 10% belongs to Igor Kuvshinnikov, one of the directors of the Association of Computer and Information Technology Enterprises.
Yury Sokolenko, director of AMI-Network LLC, specializes in the sale of plotters and scanners. The company is an official partner of HP, which is also written on its website. Mikhail Komarov remains the founder and sole owner of the company. He also controls the well-known Moscow ZAO Rubezh Design Bureau, which tests equipment with electrical components. A characteristic detail: among the founders of KB “Rubezh” you can find the name Kuvshinnikov from “Business Computer Group”.
Croc Incorporated CJSC is controlled by Boris Bobrovnikov, a well-known person in the IT industry. “Tsekhovik” of the 1980s, then the owner of a network of gyms for “jocks”. Since 1992, he began trading in used American computers through the Krok company he created. The pinnacle of Bobrovnikov’s career was the supply of computer equipment for Sberbank. However, in 2013, German Gref accused Bobrovnikov of fraud, kickbacks, and forgery of documents when clearing 52 IBM servers for the Sberbank data center. IBM broke off relations with its Moscow “platinum partner”. The founder of Krok is Boris Bobrovnikov’s brother, Ivan Bobrovnikov, but today he owns only 8.14% of the shares, the rest belongs to Boris.
LLC “Superwave Group” deals with memory cards. The company is managed by director Viktor Vasilyevich Silkin – a person with the same full name was convicted of attempted murder of two people, related to the performance of one of the victims of public duty. The co-owners of the company are Boris Belankov (at the same time he runs the Superphysics Center), Alexander Petrenko and a relative of the general director, Lyudmila Silkina.
Aleksey Kravtsov, director of CJSC Kraftway Corporation PLC, also started in the late 1980s with the import of computer components. He holds the position of president of the Russian Skating Union, somewhat strange for a man of his profession, and was noted for numerous speeches in defense of Russian athletes during doping scandals. Kravtsov’s wife is basketball player and TV presenter Yulia Bordovskikh, who a few years ago miraculously did not get on the list of Mikhail Prokhorov’s Right Cause party.
Aquarius Production Company LLC (General Director Vladimir Shibanov) is a subsidiary of Olga Serova’s Aquarius group, which, in turn, is part of Aleksandr Kalinin NCC LLC. A former KGB officer and former adviser to the Minister of Communications (at that time, Leonid Reiman) Kalinin was, by the way, the chief designer of the GAS “Vybory” in 2002. FSB businessmen Leonid Goldenberg and Yevgeny Lachkov, Kalinin’s business partner since the mid-1990s, also own shares in NCC.
