Links I Liked [Public Procurement]

1. Israel's Competition Authority finds a cartel operating in Auschwitz tour operators. It seems that the government tendered a contract to take Israeli kids on tours to Auschwitz to 5-6 companies. I assume Israel set up something akin to a framework agreement as each individual school was supposed to negotiate with the companies. Nothing like a stable market with few economic operators to "help" competition.

2. Speaking of competition, the Competition and Markets Authority and the Crown Commercial Service launch a e-learning programme to help spotting bid rigging. It is free as far as I can tell, but you need to register. It would have been better to just put it out in the open in my view.

3. All you wanted to know about Korean e-procurement, courtesy of the OECD. Good report.

4. Indian government lowers bar for startups in public procurement. In general, I am in favour of transaction cost reducing measures, but this is the wrong way to go about it. By giving a preferential treatment to startups what will happen is that the market will adapt and all tenderers will become "startups" in the future (although I am assuming it is easy to set up companies in India...).

5. Sascha Haselmayer pushes for more innovation in cities. I agree with him and under the right conditions the innovation partnership could help here in Europe. But not as the Azores regional government transposed it!