Nine roofing contractors fined £330k for collusive tendering

Nine roofing contractors have been fined £330,000 after the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) found out that they agreed to fix the prices of repair, maintenance and improvement (RMI) services for flat roofing in the West Midlands through collusive tendering.

The business involved with fines in brackets were: Apex Asphalt & Paving Co (£35,922); Briggs Cladding & Roofing (£ nil); Brindley Asphalt (£80,550); The General Asphalte Company(£63,192); Howard Evans (Roofing) (£45,322); Richard W Price (Roofing Contractors) (£18,000); Redbrook Mastic Asphalt and Felt Roofing (£17,802); Rio Asphalt & Paving Co.(£45,049); and Solihull Roofing and Building Co (£26,606).

All were found to have been involved in a series of individual agreements or concerted practices in tendering for flat roofing contracts in the West Midlands between 2000 and 2002 in breach of the Chapter I prohibition of the Competition Act 1998.

The contracts affected by collusive tendering were a number of schools, a community library, a shopping centre and a car park.

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 tendering for RMI services for a flat roof locally.

John Vickers OFT chairman said: "Collusive tendering deprives customers of the benefits of
competition. Schools were among the victims in this case."

The OFT began formally investigating the arrangements between a group of roofing contractors in June 2002 after it decided that information which it had received gave reasonable grounds to suspect that certain roofing contractors had been engaged in collusive tendering.

In line with the OFT's leniency policy Briggs Cladding & Roofing has been granted 100% leniency and Howard Evans (Roofing) has been granted 50% leniency - the financial penalties on them are being reduced accordingly.