The Competition and Markets Authority is focusing on enforcing competition law in connection with the award of public contracts. 

In a speech on Friday 16 May, Juliette Enser – Executive Director for Competition Enforcement at the CMA – noted that both the CMA's Annual Plan and the government's strategic steer to the CMA highlighted the opportunities for enforcement action in relation to public contracts.  The CMA will take these opportunities by intensifying its enforcement activity in relation to anti-competitive activity in public procurement.

Juliette Enser commented: "It is well known that public procurement is particularly vulnerable to bid-rigging and that bid-rigging, where present, can substantially increase prices: research suggests that this can be by 20% or more. And this accords with evidence from our own cases that bid-rigging can be extremely lucrative …" and reminded suppliers that "… there is a new risk facing cartelists arising from the debarment regime introduced by the Procurement Act 2023 which will see them face the possibility of inclusion in a central debarment register and exclusion from future public tenders for a period of up to five years".

Suppliers wishing to manage the risk of debarment will operate compliance programmes, both within their organisations and extending to their supply chains, to ensure that any inadvertent infringements of competition law do not affect their ability to be awarded public contracts.

For further context on how competition law compliance affects eligibility for public contracts under the Procurement Act 2023, see our recent article ‘Comply and win – infringe and lose.’