Bid Rigging Essay

Bid Rigging

An accusation of bid rigging is a serious matter. It has been suggested that the Denver Construction Inc. company colluded with the Dells Construction company to fix prices on property that was located in Illinois. These two companies have had a rocky history with four lawsuits in the last ten years as well as cases of the companies stealing bids from each other. An ex-husband has made the claim that the companies were involved in price fixing in a bid for two properties that each were sold well under the current market value. He claims to have emails and text messages to substantiate his claims.

Enacted in 1890, the Sherman Act is among our country's most important and enduring pieces of economic legislation. The Sherman Act prohibits any agreement among competitors to fix prices, rig bids, or engage in other anticompetitive activity. Criminal prosecution of Sherman Act violations is the responsibility of the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice.Violation of the Sherman Act is a felony punishable by a fine of up to $10 million for corporations, and a fine of up to $350,000 or 3 years imprisonment (or both) for individuals, if the offense was committed before June 22, 2004 (Department of Justice, N.d.). Bid rigging is considered corruption and is illegal in procurement.

When bid rigging is suspected within an organization there are several steps that can be taken to undercover the reality of the situation. There are several warning signs that can lead to detection that bid rigging is occurring and all of those are present in this case. The first step to an investigation is to look at the bids that are submitted. Some of the warning signs that would suggest bid rigging occurred would be the….....