Bid Rigging

An agreement between bidders as to the terms of their bid. Bid rigging in most jurisdictions is at least a violation of competition or antitrust law. However, it is often also a serious criminal offence, especially when it involves public or municipal contracts. A quite large range of discussions between competing bidders could be regarded as bid rigging and it is therefore good practice to curtail and control the contacts of employees involved in a bid with corresponding employees of other bidders, as well as carefully minuting communications, so as to be able to prove their innocent nature. Where employees and executives are expected to have to deal with regular members of competitors’ bid teams it is also good practice to ensure that they have had antitrust/competition compliance training.  Also known as collusive tendering.

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