Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, ANTITRUST NEWS: Canada Competition Bureau announces charges of bid rigging for Quebec infrastructure projects, (Jan 27, 2014)

The Canada Competition Bureau announced today that criminal charges have been brought against Construction Beaudin & Courville Inc. and Alain Courville for conspiring to rig bids for contracts involving road construction, water treatment, and other infrastructure projects in Quebec during 2008 and 2009. The charges were brought following a joint investigation by the Sûreté du Québec’s Service des enquêtes sur la corruption, a division of the Unité permanente anticorruption (UPAC), and the Bureau.

The investigation uncovered a complex bid-rigging scheme that ensured preferential treatment for a group of contractors seeking to obtain municipal contracts for infrastructure projects. In Quebec, the Bureau participates in the operation of UPAC by allocating resources and providing expertise in conducting investigations of alleged bid-rigging. As a result of the partnership with UPAC, a total of 77 criminal charges were brought in June 2012 against 11 individuals and nine companies for their role in a collusion scheme, mainly for infrastructure projects in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and surrounding areas.

“Bid-rigging hurts healthy competition, as it favors a small number of contractors to the detriment of new players in awarding public contracts,” said John Pecman, Commissioner of Competition. “We are thankful for the collaboration with our domestic law enforcement counterparts, such as the Sûreté du Québec, as these partnerships help us better fight collusion and corruption in Canada,”

News: Antitrust