Office of Fair Trading collaborates with Office of Government Commerce to create checklist for procurement officials.

The Office of Fair Trading is working with the Office of Government Commerce to create a checklist for procurement officials to crack down on bid rigging in public sector contracts.

The guidance, which is due out next year, comes after OFT officials held a series of raids on firms in the East Midlands, uncovering an estimated £500m-worth of bid rigging.

In July, OFT officials have raided firms in Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Derbyshire and South Yorkshire amid suspicions that they had been colluding in assembling tenders over the past five years.

No details have been released of the firms’ identities, or even the sectors they cover.