Beating the bid-riggers: Angry homeowners use competition law to battle price-fixing
A group of disgruntled HK homeowners is harnessing competition law to battle inflated costs from manipulated construction tenders
Angry and out-of-pocket Hong Kong homeowners now challenging the city’s government to stand up to alleged construction sector bid-rigging cartels hope they have found a new weak spot: competition law.
Last month, the Property Owners’ Anti Bid-Rigging Alliance, an activist group representing 40 housing estates, marched to the Wan Chai office of the freshly staffed Competition Commission to demand that those engaged in price-fixing be punished.
It may yet prove a shrewd move. Tasked with policing newly drafted competition laws long championed by consumer and anti-monopoly campaigners, the commission’s sweeping mandate already has construction companies dusting off their compliance manuals.
“Everyone is scrambling a little bit over the Competition Commission as companies realise they only have so much time to get compliant,” said Sebastien Evrard, a partner of law firm Jones Day.
Construction sector firms with reputations to protect are auditing internal operations and tender processes before the new laws take effect, say lawyers. It is driven in part by whistle-blower amnesty rules that threaten previously tightknit cartels.
Once the new laws take effect, “you cannot trust anyone”, said Evrard.
