September 23 2009

A succession of Britain’s biggest building companies have been levied a series of fines totalling £129m after being found guilty of rigging bids for contracts by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT).

Endemic malpractice saw at least 103 firms collude with competitors to artificially inflate the pricing of bids, this creates an illusion of competition where the lowest bid is often decided in advance by the bidders,leaving many customers out of pocket.

Leading the rogues gallery of miscreants was the Kier Group who were levied a hefty £17.9m fine whilst Interserve were hit by an £11.6m and scores more were landed with fines of £5m and above, including Galliford Try, Crest Nicholson and Carillion JM.

The fine culminates five years of investigation by the OFT over infringements on building projects across England, worth £200m, between 2000 and 2006. In a rare concession however companies will have three years to pay their fines, reflecting the current fragile nature of the industry.

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