Bid rigging occurs when companies, that would otherwise be expected to compete, conspire to raise prices or lower the quality of their bids. Bid rigging is one of the most damaging anticompetitive practices. It leads to higher costs, lower quality and innovation, and undermines the delivery of public services. Detecting bid rigging remains difficult due to the secretive and evolving nature of cartels, limited enforcement resources, and low awareness of bid-rigging costs and risks among public officials.
This 2-year project, starting in September 2025, aims at helping Czechia, France, Ireland, Latvia, Poland and Portugal improve bid-rigging detection and reporting. It will build on good practices identified in another similar project with six other EU countries. The project is funded by the European Union via the Technical Support Instrument, and is carried out in co-operation with the Reform and Investment Task Force (SG REFORM) and the Directorate‑General for Competition (DG COMP) ) of the European Commission.
Project goals include:
The project aims to enhance compliance with competition law in public procurement through:
- Enhancing the ability of the procurement workforce on detection of bid rigging
- Improving mechanisms for reporting bid rigging and transmitting data to competition authorities
- Strengthening co-operation between competition authorities and other public bodies
Key project outputs include:
- Capacity building for public procurement officials, judges and non-competition enforcers, through workshops hosted in each of the beneficiary countries
- An e-learning module on competition law for procurement officials
- Templates for reporting of bid-rigging suspicions
- A report with good practices and recommendations
