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112 construction firms have been accused of bid rigging by the OFT (Office of Fair Trading) in England. There are two main allegations. One is that they engaged in cover pricing – where one or more bidders collude with a competitor during a tender process to obtain a price or prices which are intended to be too high to win the contract. Cover pricing arrangements have previously been found by the OFT and the Competition Appeal Tribunal to be illegal and in breach of the Competition Act 1998 due to the restrictions on competition that arise.

In addition, a minority of the construction companies have been accused of entering into arrangements whereby it was agreed that the successful tenderer would pay an agreed sum of money to the unsuccessful tenderers (known as a

The OFT (Office of Fair Trading) has today published a report to measure the overall value of consumer detriment in the UK economy i.e. where a consumer suffers unfair treatment from its dealings with an organization. For every 1000 consumers interviewed, 542 problems were identified, and across the whole of the UK population this equates to an estimated 26.5 million problems over the last year.

The report was compiled using information from 10,000 consumers, and estimates the cost to consumers was around

On 6th April some more sections of The Companies Act 2006 come into effect. This is the longest statute ever passed by Parliament and its implementation by stages