Bid Rigging - Types of Bid Rigging

Types of Bid Rigging

There are some very common bid rigging practices:

• Subcontract bid rigging occurs where some of the conspirators agree not to submit bids, or to submit cover bids that are intended not to be successful, on the condition that some parts of the successful bidder's contract will be subcontracted to them. In this way, they "share the spoils" among themselves.
• Bid suppression occurs where some of the conspirators agree not to submit a bid so that another conspirator can win the contract.
• Complementary bidding, also known as cover bidding or courtesy bidding, occurs where some of the bidders bid an amount knowing that it is too high or contains conditions that they know to be unacceptable to the agency calling for the bids. Complementary bidding, however, is not always a corrupt practice. A contractor that is too busy to complete the work will often place a high bid simply to maintain a relationship with government agencies.
• Bid rotation occurs where the bidders take turns being the designated successful bidder, for example, each conspirator is designated to be the successful bidder on certain contracts, with conspirators designated to win other contracts. This is a form of market allocation, where the conspirators allocate or apportion markets, products, customers or geographic territories among themselves, so that each will get a "fair share" of the total business, without having to truly compete with the others for that business.

These forms of bid rigging are not mutually exclusive of one another, and two or more of these practices could occur at the same time. For example, if one member of the bidding ring is designated to win a particular contract, that bidder's conspirators could avoid winning either by not bidding ("bid suppression"), or by submitting a high bid ("cover bidding").