Meaning & use
bid rigging
Last updated
Meaning
noununcountablebusinesslegal
An illegal agreement among companies about who will win a contract, so that they can avoid real competition and keep prices high.
Grammar: Uncountable: bid rigging is illegal, not a bid rigging.
Patterns
- accused of bid rigging
- bid rigging in something
Three construction firms were fined for bid rigging on school building contracts.
Investigators found emails showing bid rigging among the road contractors.
Bid rigging pushes up the cost of public projects, so taxpayers end up paying more.
Common combinations
- accused of bid rigging
- The two firms were accused of bid rigging in a city contract.
- investigate bid rigging
- Regulators began to investigate bid rigging in the waste industry.
- bid rigging scheme
- A bid rigging scheme cost the county millions.
- bid rigging cartel
- The bid rigging cartel secretly shared out the contracts.
- charged with bid rigging
- Four executives were charged with bid rigging.
Synonyms and how they differ
- collusion
- This is the broader word for any secret cooperation to cheat others, whereas bid rigging is specifically about manipulating the bidding for a contract.
- price fixing
- It means agreeing the price of goods in advance, while bid rigging is about deciding who wins a tender.
- cartel behavior
- It describes the wider pattern of firms acting together, and bid rigging is one example of it.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: bid rigging or bid shielding?
bid rigging vs bid shielding
A different tactic in auctions where someone makes a fake high bid and then withdraws it, whereas bid rigging involves several firms agreeing in advance.
Practice
Which situation is an example of bid rigging?
Choose one answer.
Bid rigging needs a secret agreement between bidders. Lowering a price is fair competition, so it does not count.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “bid rigging”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.