Should they even be on the pitch?

Many organisations now question the corruption track record of their sub-contractors as a matter of course.. So how are those found guilty of bid-rigging and price-fixing still wining work?

Football is a deeply frustrating game.  Questionable refereeing and VAR decisions; goals conceded against the run of play; your team snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.  But if there is one thing that is even more frustrating than all of those, it is losing to a goal scored by a player that has no right to be on the pitch.

Back in March this year Arsenal striker and Germany international Kai Havertz was given a yellow card for catching Brentford player - Kristoffer Ajer - in the face with an elbow.  Later in the same match, Havertz appeared to dive in the penalty area in the hope of winning his side a penalty; an act worthy of a second yellow card.  That “simulation” was unsuccessful, and - much to the annoyance of the Brentford manager and the team’s traveling fans - Havertz was not booked for a second time and subsequently dismissed.  That anger was compounded when, rather than being sent off, Havertz then went on to score the winning goal.

Demolition is an equally frustrating game.  And it is at its most frustrating for precisely the same reason.

Late last week, it was reported that one of the companies named in last year’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigation into bid-rigging had won the demolition, enabling works and construction of a new residential tower in London (coincidentally just a stone’s throw from where I grew up).

Make no mistake, the company in question is a premier league demolition company.  I have been on their sites in the past and they do some fine and admirable work.  They employ some very good people.  Furthermore, I am not singling them out (which is why I have chosen not to name them).  

But, like Kai Havertz, should they have even been on the pitch?

Now, before we move on, I will reiterate that this is not targeted at a single company.  I am also very aware that the companies I am about to speak about have all been fined - some of them heavily - so some might argue that they have paid their dues.  

That is NOT what this article is about.  What it IS about is this.

Across the construction sector, there has been a clamour to appear to be transparent and squeaky-clean.  Main and sub-contractors are now quizzed about previous corruption and collusion prosecutions as a matter of course.  It is a question that appears on pre-qualification questionnaires and is repeated in pre-tender meetings and pre-contract negotiations up and down the land.  

So how is it that, just over a year after ten UK demolition companies were hit with £60 million in fines following the CMA investigation into bid-rigging, those companies continue to make it onto tender lists; make it past the supposedly intense scrutiny of the collusion police; and continue to win high-profile work?

This is not a jab at the 10 companies.  They did wrong; they got caught; having been caught, they came clean; and - mostly - they took their punishment.  

But what is the value of these anti-corruption measures if they are being bypassed, overlooked or just plain ignored?  The names of the “CMA 10” have been in the public domain for more than a year; no-one could possibly claim they were unaware of who did what and when.

As I said from the outset, I accept the 10 companies have paid their dues and they are quite right to win as much work as they possibly can.  That is the nature of business. Furthermore, I have no desire for the employees of those 10 companies to be penalised unduly for activities in which they played no part.

But the fallout from the CMA investigation has taken an unexpected twist.  When the ball dropped back in March last year, there was talk of the guilty parties falling foul of anti-corruption measures put in place by developers and clients.  Instead, it has merely proved that those anti-corruption measures are not worth the paper they’re written on.