Collusive bidding refers to an agreement among two or more competitors to change the bids they otherwise would have offered absent the agreement. Where collusive bidding is well established, prices can rise substantially, in some cases by as much as several hundred percent. Under Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, collusive bidding is per se illegal.
As explained by the International Anti-Corruption Resource Center (IACRC), “collusive bidding refers to agreements by contractors in a particular trade to cooperate to defeat the competitive bidding process in order to assign winners and inflate prices.”
Under Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, collusive bidding is per se illegal.
See Antitrust Law for more information.
[Last updated in July of 2022 by the Wex Definitions Team]