Two Building Firms Fined $4.6m for Rigging Tender Bids to Upgrade Community Clubs

Two construction firms have been fined a total of $4.6 million by the competition watchdog for rigging bids in tenders called by the People's Association (PA).

- Isabelle Liew

The Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS) said on May 23 that Trust-Build Engineering and Construction and Hunan Fengtian Construction Group Co had rigged bids for three tenders in 2022 for upgrading works in the Bukit Batok, Cheng San and Eunos community clubs.

The tenders had a value of around $56 million for major upgrading works that included repair works, piling and scaffolding.

CCCS' investigations, which began in July 2023, found that both companies colluded on their bid prices and tender submissions, giving one of them—Trust-Build—a better chance at winning the projects. Hunan Fengtian had prepared Trust-Build's tender submissions and proposed its bid prices for each of PA's tenders, CCCS said. Trust-Build's bid prices were lower than Hunan Fengtian's to make the former's bids appear more attractive.

PA had noticed that similar words, diagrams and photos were used in the tender submissions from the two companies before the tenders were awarded, and reported the matter to CCCS.

"CCCS found that the bid-rigging conduct eliminated the competitive pressure between the parties to submit their best offers to PA, even though none of the PA tenders were awarded to either of the parties," said the competition watchdog. "Such bid-rigging conduct has the potential to give the false impression that the bids received from the parties were genuine and competitive."