Watchdog seeks 85,000-euro penalty over ferry procurement

Finland’s Competition and Consumer Authority has proposed an 85,000-euro penalty for the Southwest Finland Vitality Centre over an unlawful direct award, Yle reports.

The procurement concerned mooring structures for a ferry berth in the Turku archipelago and their installation. The centre made direct purchases in 2024 and 2025. The work cost about one million euros, and the authority also refers to a separate 2024 purchase worth about 1.2 million euros.

The centre says the purchases were permitted additional work under the previously tendered Saaristomeri I and II service contracts. The authority says they were not connected to those contracts and should have been put out to tender. It noted that the value of both purchases exceeded the applicable EU threshold by several times.

The authority is seeking a penalty over the 2025 purchase. It will issue a warning over the 2024 purchase because the time limit for proposing a penalty has expired. The 2025 direct award will proceed to the Market Court.