Questions that might reveal collusive bidding include:
- Do you know or suspect, or have you heard, that certain bidders have engaged in collusive bidding?
- Do certain companies win the majority of contract awards in a particular area or win contracts on a rotating basis ?
- Do losing bidders appear as sub-contractors to the winning bidder?
- Are the winning and low bids on certain contracts unreasonably high?
- Are certain line items in losing bids unreasonably high?
- Are bids submitted by different companies physically similar, such having as identical formats or common spelling errors?
- Are there unusual bidding patterns, such as bids an exact percentage apart?
- Have different bidders on a contract submitted sequential bid securities or securities purchased at the same time at the same bank?
- Do some losing bids contain what appear to be deliberate errors or appear to be deliberately incomplete?
- Do the same bidders bid against each other on every job?
- Do qualified bidders who once bid no longer submit bids?
- Are there qualified bidders who never submit a bid?
- Do prices drop when a new bidder enters the competition?
- Is there correspondence or other indications that contractors engage in pricing agreements, bidder’s conferences or other agreements?
- Are controls and procedures to prevent collusive bidding in place and enforced?