Roofing contractors fined £138k for price fixing
11:53 12 Jul 2005
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Six roofing contractors have been fined £138,000 by the Office of Fair Trading after agreeing to fix the prices of flat roofing services in Western-Central Scotland through collusive tendering.
The orginal punishment was almost £260,000 but it was reduced to just over half that amount by leniency.
The six businesses were:
- Pirie (£85,774 reduced to zero by leniency)
- W G Walker & Company (Ayr) (£76,194 reduced to £41,907 by leniency)
- Bonnington Contracts (£45,187)
- McKay Roofing (£27,219)
- Geo. Brolly & Co (Roofing) (£22,239)
- Advanced Roofing (£1,963)
All were found to have been involved, to varying degrees, in a series of individual agreements and/or concerted practices in tendering for flat roofing contracts from 2000 to 2002 in breach of the Competition Act 1998.
The contracts affected were for felt and single ply flat roofing services. The range of customers affected included a hospital, a school and several banks.
The OFT concluded that the parties' collusion in setting tender prices was intended to restrict or distort competition and meant that buyers were unable to obtain competitive prices when buying flat roofing services.