If you or your company suffered monetary loss or damages from a bid rigging antitrust scheme, you may be entitled to compensation from a bid rigging class action lawsuit case or settlement claim.
A team of class action attorneys and antitrust lawyers is investigating potential bid rigging antitrust class action lawsuit cases of individuals and/or businesses who were harmed by illegal bid rigging schemes.
Bid rigging is a type of illegal price fixing agreement whereby independent competitors agree or conspire to not fully compete against each other in responding to a request for a bid for goods or services so that they can determine in advance who the winning bidder will be.
When contracts are awarded by soliciting competitive bids, coordination and collusion among bidders undermines the bidding process resulting in less competition and potentially higher prices for consumers.
Bid Rigging Class Action Lawsuit Claims
Bid rigging class action lawsuit and settlement cases potentially being investigated include claims of individuals or businesses who suffered harm or damages due to an illegal bid rigging scheme, including:
- Bid rigging
- Bid suppression
- Bid rotation
- Cover, courtesy or complimentary bidding
- Subcontracting
- Non-conforming bid
- Customer or market allocation/division
- Other bid rigging lawsuit claims
Bid Suppresion Antitrust Claims
In a bid suppression scheme, competitors who would otherwise be expected to bid agree not to bid or competitors who have already bid agree to withdraw their bid so that another competitor wins the bidding.
Bid Rotation Antitrust Claims
In a bid rotation scheme, conspirators take turns being the low bidder (e.g., by rotating so that each will win an equal number of contracts over time, allocating turns based on overall market share, rotating contracts so that each will win an equal dollar volume over time, dividing turns on the basis of need, taking turns based on the type of customer or account involved or geographic location, etc.).
Cover, Courtesy & Complimentary Antitrust Claims
In a complimentary bidding scheme (also referred to as cover bidding or courtesy bidding), competitors agree to submit bids that are not intended to be accepted (e.g., the bids are too high or contain special terms that are not acceptable) but designed to give the appearance of a competetive bidding process.
Subcontracting Antitrust Claims
In a subcontracting bidding scheme, competitors who agree to a bid rigging scheme do so in exchange for receiving a subcontract or supply contract from the the successful low bidder.
Potential Signs of Bid Rigging Activity
Some possible indicators of bid rigging activities may include:
- Identical (or very close) bids from different companies
- Identical increases in price of bids
- Bids are significantly above value of contract
- Bids are significantly above comparable bids from same company
- Large gap between the winning bid and all others
- Lack of qualified bidders
- Regular competitors expected to bid fail to do so
- Line items in bids bear no relation to cost
- High bids when work is scarce
- Physical evidence of collusion
- Alteration of bids
- Same companies almost always win or lose bids
- Patterns amongst winning bidders
- Mysterious price drops when new bidder appears
- Competitors meet shortly before/after bids are submitted
- Bidders use identical cost estimates for bids
- Bids that fail to follow instructions
- Sudden ending of promos or discounts
- Last minute bid adjustments
- Bid submitted for contract that is incapable of being performed
- Local delivery bids are higher than bids for longer distance delivery
- Bids are identical to approved budget for contract
- References made to industry-wide or association price schedules
- Advanced non-public knowledge about competitors’ pricing
- Losing bidders receive subcontracts or valuable concessions
- Other bid rigging signs or red flags
If you or your company were harmed from a bid rigging scheme, you may be entitled to recover compensation from a bid rigging class action lawsuit case or settlement claim. Contact an antitrust class action lawyer to request a free case review.
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**The use of any trademarks, tradenames or service marks is solely for product identification and/or informational purposes.
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