The selection of the hall builder in Karlovy Vary is being checked by the Office for the Protection of Competition (ÚOHS)

Karlovy Vary - The Office for the Protection of Competition (ÚOHS) is investigating the selection of the builder for the new multifunctional hall in Karlovy Vary. The initiative was jointly submitted by civic associations from Karlovy Vary, which criticize the drawing held during the tender, the winner of which received a billion-crown contract. This is reported by today's Mladá fronta Dnes (MfD) in the supplement for the Karlovy Vary Region.
    ÚOHS is examining whether the Karlovy Vary city council violated the public procurement law in the tender process. The competition for the city council was organized by the company Stormen. It tasked another company, StoneBlock, with drawing five finalists from a total of 16 applicants. A video recording of the draw from April 2006 shows that extracting the last finalist and ultimately the winner of the competition - a consortium of companies Syner, Metrostav, and Baustav - took an unreasonably long time.
    According to MfD, ÚOHS aims to conclude administrative proceedings with the city council in September. Karlovy Vary faces penalties of up to one hundred million crowns.
    Millions of people have already seen the footage of the contested draw online and on television. Viewers laugh at how the man drawing took a full 32 seconds to rummage through the drawing box before pulling out the ticket for the companies Syner, Metrostav, and Baustav. Meanwhile, he drew the other participants in the competition much more quickly. A notary public was also present, who was amused by the man's actions. Her conduct has been under investigation by the Presidency of the Notarial Chamber in Plzeň since April of this year.
    Stormen explains the long delay in the draw as a technical problem. According to them, the tickets in the drawing box stuck together due to stamp ink and had to be separated.