Capio St Göran’s Hospital loses competition case in the Stockholm City Court
Stockholm District Court today announced its judgment in a competition case involving Capio St Göran’s Hospital (CStG). The case had been on-going since August 2013 and concerned a subcontracting agreement entered into in connection with the Stockholm City Council’s (SCC) procurement in 2008 for clinical physiology services. The district court ruled partly in favour of the Swedish Competition Authority (KKV) and ordered CStG to pay fines of 1.1 million SEK.
The District Court held that the infraction was not committed intentionally and that the parties' cooperation was characterised by a relatively high degree of transparency, which contributed to the fine being set 30 per cent lower than what had been claimed.
The 2008 public procurement for clinical physiology services concerned services consisting in specialised physiological examinations, such as sleep apnea studies and work ECG. The services were and are completely separate from CStG’s main contract with the SCC.
In connection with the procurement, CStG entered into a subcontracting agreement with Aleris in order to be able to offer a competitive and separate tender in full competition. The subcontractor relationship was expressly stated in CStG’s and Aleris’ offers and was approved by the SCC, which also extended the agreement in November 2012 to June 2014 when the agreement expired.
CStG participated in the tender process in 2008 in order to maintain its expertise within clinical physiology, which is an area of expertise which the hospital contract requires that CStG maintains, to meet its obligation to provide training and, above all, to meet the patients’ needs.
The subcontracting agreement has only been applied in the field of sleep apnea studies. The turnover relating to the agreement is less than 0.2 percent of the hospital's total sales during the years 2010 to 2014. In addition, CStG has not had any influence on the number of examinations actually undertaken, as this depends on the number of referrals from doctors outside the hospital.
Since KKV launched its investigation in June 2012, CStG has cooperated fully with KKV and has been entirely transparent with regard to all relevant information in the case. On August 28 2013, KKV filed a lawsuit against CStG and the judgment was delivered today. In the same case, the District Court imposed fines of 25.3 million SEK to Aleris and of 2.1 million SEK to Hjärt-Kärlgruppen.
CStG does not share the views of the District Court and will now appeal the judgment to the Swedish Market Court.
For information, please contact:
Britta Wallgren, CEO, Capio St Göran’s Hospital
Telephone: +46 8 587 020 50
Anders Persson, Communications officer, Capio St Göran’s Hospital
Telephone: +46 739 01 26 99
Capio AB (publ) is required to publish the above information under the Swedish Financial Instruments Trading Act. The information was submitted for publication on December 18, 2015 at 13.00 CET.
Capio AB (publ) is a leading, pan-European healthcare provider offering a broad range of high quality medical, surgical and psychiatric healthcare services in four countries through its hospitals, specialist clinics and primary care units. In 2014, Capio’s 12,357 employees provided healthcare services during 4.6 million patient visits across the Group’s facilities in Sweden, Norway, France and Germany, generating net sales of MSEK 13,200. Capio operates across three geographic segments: Nordic (54 percent of Group net sales 2014), France (37 percent of Group net sales 2014) and Germany (9 percent of Group net sales 2014). For more information about Capio, please see www.capio.com.