CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

摘要

The burly Yorkshire contractor laughs. "If there is anyone in the construction industry smart enough to be involved in cartels I'd be surprised." On recent evidence, there are plenty smart enough. Last week, the Office of Fair Trading announced that it had launched dawn raids on 22 firms in the East Midlands and South Yorkshire; the suspicion was that they had been colluding on tenders for the past five years. That was just the latest in a series of cartel-crushing operations that the OFT has pursued in the industry over the past year. Indeed, construction's tendency to collude has become so apparent that it is one of the five sectors the watchdog has prioritised in its 2005/06 business plan. The OFT now poses a real threat to any firms that have fallen below the immaculate standards required by competition law. Not only are they at risk of fines as high as 10% of their global turnover, but directors face criminal prosecution by the Serious Fraud Office and the possibility of a 15-year disqualification from running a company. And it's not just the conscious fraudsters who are risk: many companies are unsure what the OFT defines as collusion, are unaware that that definition has changed over the years and aren't sure of their rights when facing investigation. How many bosses know what they can and can't say when they run into a rival in their local pub?