Firm Accidentally Faxes Details Of Bid Rigging To Customer

[Mulboyne]

AFP: Japanese firm's fax nightmare
A supposedly secret attempt in Japan to fix a bidding for a public contract came undone when a company erroneously faxed the details of who should win to the city government offering the job. The municipal government of Nichinan in southern Miyazaki prefecture received a fax with the planned bidding price and the name of the firm that was to win the contract, according to the online edition of the Nishi Nippon Shimbun newspaper on Friday. "The city government received a fax from one bidding company, asking other bidders to cooperate in forming collusive bidding," the newspaper said. "The company that sent the fax told city officials that it was being 'absent-minded'," the newspaper said. The contract was for printing various official forms and was worth several million yen, the newspaper said, without naming the companies involved. The bidding was to take place on November 6, and the fax came to the city hall on the previous day, the paper said. The city cancelled the bid and is investigating the companies who were supposed to take part, the paper said.

[Samurai_Jerk]

That's funny. I bet the guy who did that going to have to sever his pinky now.

[American Oyaji]

That's funny. I bet the guy who did that going to have to sever his pinky now.

Naw. They want 3 fingers for this one.

[Behan]

I wonder if we can infer from this that the bid-rigging scandals that have come to light have not done much to reduce how often it happens.

I used to teach a former judge who sat on a panel(or something) that was investigating the bid-rigging case involving one of the big bridges connecting Shikoku and Honshu(or one of those big islands whose names I forget).

He was also on a panel dealing with a complaint made by Nokia about government procurement procedures. I guess they complained about unfairness. The former judge didn't find in favor for Nokia he told me.

He had been a high court judge and attached to the Japanese supreme court in some kind of administrative job. He said he was a secretary there. A nice and interesting guy, but he seemed kind of right wing to me. Of course he was extremely intelligent.

[Captain Japan]

I wonder if we can infer from this that the bid-rigging scandals that have come to light have not done much to reduce how often it happens.

Not in the least. For construction, it is nearly the only way that contracts are handed out.

My company was tendering for a job in a developing country where the client was a large international org. The money was coming from Japan so all the tenderers were Japanese gumis. My job was to submit our tender. My boss's job was to make sure it was all bid-rigged properly. Well, he screwed it all up. When the envelopes were torn open the bid authorities noticed that one sheet listing the construction quantities was identical (right down to the blemishes that a copy machine can make) to that of another tenderer. I remember the guy in charge holding the sheet up in the air asking how this could be possible. I was actually really angry. All my boss had to do was bid-rig the damn thing properly and he had screwed that up.

The international org of course knew what was going on - this was something like the 8th project in this country in the last 2 years. I think this little incident was their way of telling the Japanese cos. to be a little more careful. In the end, nothing really happened.