Last week, three former directors of office fit-out companies were disqualified from holding directorships or managing any UK company for between two and five years, after being found guilty of breaking competition law. One was a director of Bluu Solutions, owned by JLL Group, while two others were from Fourfront companies Cube Interior Solutions and Area Sq. In total four companies were fined more than £7m. This came hot on the heels of April’s ban on two company directors whose construction firm, CPM Group, had participated in a cartel over the supply of precast concrete drainage products – they were barred by a court from holding directorships or managing any company for up to seven-and-a-half years. 

The disqualifications were carried out at the behest of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which investigated and exposed both cartels, and is still investigating other suspected participants in the concrete cartel – Stanton Bonna Concrete Ltd and FP McCann Ltd. 

The disqualifications are part of the latest activity by the revitalised competition regulator, which has launched a rash of cases against construction firms for cartel-type behaviour, covering everything from groundworks firms to rolled lead suppliers.

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