- HP India has been fined 1.42 billion rupees ($14.7 million) for two separate cases
- Self-reporting ultimately landed it with lighter fines
- Both cases relate to government tender manipulation between 2017 and 2020
India's Competition Commission (CCI) has accused HP India and some related resellers of coordinating bids for Indian government contracts on the Government e-Marketplace.
According to the CCI, the company and certain partners manipulated government tenders by predetermined or communicated bid prices, submitting deliberately uncompetitive bids to create the appearance of competition and controlling discounts.
The regulator revealed two separate cases for investigation – one relating to PCs, and the other relating to printing consumables like ink and toner.
HP accused of manufacturing bids to win Indian government contracts
In the printing case, the CCI uncovered emails, witness statements, WhatsApp group conversations and even a 2019 video from a reseller meeting. Discussions around which companies would submit supporting bids, prices and discounts, and which reseller should win particular contracts were found.
The CCI declared that a total of 16 Tier-2 resellers had violated its Competition Act through bid rigging, with HP India fined 119.8 million rupees and its resellers fined a combined total of 23 million rupees.
A separate case revealed similar conduct covering laptops, desktops, workstations, POS systems, peripherals and more. Similarly, five additional resellers were highlighted on top of HP India's core businesses, bringing this case's fines total to 1.3 billion rupees and 12.2 million rupees respectively.
The CCI's final orders bring HP India's total fines to around 1.42 billion rupees, or $14.7 million, excluding the fines imposed on its partners.
But the fine could have been a lot worse had HP India not come forward and admitted to its wrongdoing between 2017 and 2020, having submitted a lesser-penalty application to buy itself a discount on the fines.
TechRadar Pro has asked HP for a comment, but we did not receive an immediate response.
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