Kingston Council will continue to accept bids from construction companies which were fined for bid-rigging on schools, hospitals and flats.
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) imposed fines totalling £129.5m on 103 construction firms found to have colluded with competitors on building contracts, but said there was an epidemic of 1,000 firms suspected of “cover pricing” which it had not been able to pursue.
Contractors that did not want to win a contract would bid anyway, with a price that was too high, allowing a competitor to win artificially-high contracts, the OFT said.
The firms fined included major companies like Balfour Beatty, Carillion and Wilmott Dixon.
Kingston Council said it had robust anti-collusion procedures in place and was not aware of any incidents where it had been fooled by bid-rigging.
A spokesman said: “The council will review the OFT’s full findings when they are available but does not at this stage anticipate taking any action in respect of current or previous contracts or excluding any of the implicated companies from future tendering opportunities.”
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