Speakers
Session
Bid-rigging is a serious type of illegal collusion that can increase prices by 20% on average.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the UK’s competition and consumer protection watchdog, has taken a number of enforcement cases involving anti-competitive business practices, including bid-rigging, and many have affected public sector bodies. Those that break the law go to great lengths to hide wrongdoing.
In this session the CMA will discuss common bid-rigging red flags, lessons learnt from enforcement cases as well as CMA detection and reporting tools freely available to public sector commercial teams.
Richard Brown is an Assistant Director in the Catels Enforcement Team within the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). He has led investigations in a number of cartel investigations (both civil and criminal cases).
Richard has been at the CMA since its creation in 2014 having joined one of its precursor agencies, the OFT. Richard is by background a criminal barrister who practiced for ten years in the criminal courts defending and prosecuting the full range of criminal offences. He then joined the Government Legal Service in 2008 working at the Serious Organised Crime Agency where he conducted civil recovery proceedings, aiming to seize the proceeds of unlawful conduct. He also worked in the Attorney General’s Office advising on the wide spectrum of legal issues and litigation directly involving the Attorney General, in particular the potential adverse impact of reporting on high profile judicial proceedings.