The video relay services enables the deaf population to call hearing people with the help of a sign language interpretors. The deaf person contacts an interpretor using a video phone, then the interpretor calls the hearing person on a regular phone and translate the conversation between sign and voice. Sweden is the leading country in Europe for such services. They are provided by a single call center under the authority of PTS.

Recently, the PTS issued a bid to renew the contract and improve the system by proposing new innovation. The bid was officially won by an European group of companies led by swedish companies Verbaldigitalius and Omnitor well known in the Swedish deaf compunity. The main driver in the decision was clearly the proposed price which was 15% lower than the price proposed by companies currently in charge of the call center.

These incumbent players however complained to procument authority and submitted five problems in the winning proposal. PTS dismissed four of them but the court of law reversed the procurment decision on the last one: the winner did not have enough experience in managing video call center. Unfortuntly there is only one in Sweden and no other in Europe until very recently so it is hard to have such requirement for an open bid. Furthermore, another member (the French company IVèS) of the consortium happened to have the required experience as it handle the platform for video relay service in France since several years.

At the same time it appears that this incumbent players where not exactly within the law:

- the organisation that is hiring interpreters is the Örebro council which authority is supposed to be limited geographically. In this case, it provides a service to all Sweden.
- a complain has also been filed by the Swedish Competition agency again the same council as it is normally forbidden for a public organisation to compete with private sector in Sweden.
- finally, it appears that Örebro council has contracted with the nWise company outside any procurement procedure. Those contracts also exceeds the "support for small business" programme limit.

Sweden has reputation for transparency and good business practice. In this particular case, a local authority appears to break the rules to obtain more funding and in effect it prevent private sector to compete on a fair basis and if the decision is confirmed, it eventully mean that the Swedish taxpayer will pay 15% more for the same service at a time when budgets are tight.


Bengt Olsen
Verbaldigitalius AB

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