Bid-rigging: CC demands clarification from OFT

The Construction Confederation (CC) has called on the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to make clearer its allegations against 112 contractors alleged of being involved in anti-competitive tendering practices.

The CC is worried that media reports have focused on the practice of companies offering each other "compensation payments", the most serious form of "bid-rigging", while it is suspected that the majority of companies named are alleged only to have engaged in "cover-pricing".

It said that it wanted to know:

• What percentage of the 112 are alleged to have engaged in "compensation payments";
• Whether it is true that less than 10% of them are thought to have been involved in this more serious practice;
• If claims that 95% of the 240 suspect contracts examined by the OFT did not involve compensation payments are true.

Meanwhile, the CC questioned claims by the OFT in the media that public sector contracts may have been inflated by 10%, as a result of the contractors' alleged actions, and asked what evidence the claim was based on.

In a statement the CC said: "If fewer than 10 of the 112 firms named are actually facing allegations of the more serious competition law breach involving compensation payments, then the OFT should come out and say so."