Riga, January 7, 2026 — The Latvian authority has warned that a recent Supreme Court ruling in the construction cartel case risks significantly weakening cooperation between law enforcement agencies and limiting the ability to uncover the most serious competition law violations.
In a statement published on Wednesday, the authority stated that the Supreme Court’s Administrative Cases Department had overturned a lower court judgment upholding a 2021 decision that found a long-running cartel in the construction sector. The case has now been sent back to the appellate court for reconsideration.
According to the authority, the Supreme Court did not assess whether a cartel existed on the merits and did not dispute the authenticity or legality of recorded conversations obtained during a criminal investigation. Instead, the court focused narrowly on procedural issues surrounding the transfer of evidence from the anti-corruption authority to the competition authority.
Evidence Transfer at Issue
The ruling held that information obtained through operational surveillance measures in a criminal investigation could not be used to prove a cartel in administrative proceedings, on the grounds that cartel detection does not fall within the statutory purposes of operational activities.
The authority stressed that the recordings were lawfully obtained with judicial authorization, had lost their classified status at the time of transfer, and were verified by expert analysis to be authentic and unaltered. The court did not challenge these points.
It also noted that the anti-corruption authority, acting as the criminal case handler, had the legal power to share evidence with another authority once it no longer jeopardized the criminal investigation and where such disclosure was necessary and justified.
Proportionality and Public Interest
The authority criticized the ruling for failing to weigh individual privacy rights against the broader public interest in uncovering a secret, long-running cartel in public procurement. The conduct in question lasted more than five years and affected procurement contracts worth over EUR 600 million, causing substantial harm to public finances, EU co-funded projects, and fair competition.
The statement pointed to European Court of Human Rights case law recognizing that the transfer of lawfully intercepted communications to competition authorities for cartel investigations does not violate the right to private life where it serves a legitimate and proportionate aim.
Enforcement Implications
The authority warned that the judgment could discourage inter-agency cooperation and make it substantially harder to detect secret cartels, particularly where agreements are implemented orally and leave little documentary evidence. It emphasized that it lacks powers to conduct surveillance itself and must rely on lawful cooperation with criminal enforcement bodies in complex cases.
In the underlying 2021 decision, the authority fined 10 construction companies a total of EUR 16.65 million (approximately $19.4 million) for colluding in public and private tenders.
The authority said it respects the Supreme Court’s decision but will pursue all available legal avenues to ensure effective enforcement against serious and covert cartel conduct.
