Colusive Tendering 3

[sc]

I recently had the unenviable happen, I approached a fellow engineer with the offer of tendering jointly on some structural and civil design. We worked on the tender together with my company taking the lead role due to greater expertice in the area required. We submitted the bid in my name with his firm listed as support staff. This was to me a fairly standard approach to what was a fairly standard project.

Unknown to me he also had his staff submitting another joint bid with another engineering firm. When I found this out I approached him and advised that I would like him to withdraw his support for the other engineering firm. He had stated that he only knew about the job because I told him of it. He also advised that he would not withdraw his other joint bid.

I withdrew my bid and advised the client of the reasons for doing so (uncomfortable with the situation and possible breach of ethics by the supporting engineering firm). The client gave me the job (based on my ethical approach) and refused to deal with the supporting engineer or the other firm again. Took me some time to find a suitable replacement firm, but I did and we completed the project.

Guess what, the supporting engineering firm contacted me and threatened to sue for defamation and breach of contract. Well that has all happened and passed under the bridge, I won.

Is this a common occurence or am I just lucky? I have also reported the problem to the local engineers association for review.

regards
sc

 

[IRstuff]

But isn't that a caveat emptor situation?


The first we do when we go into similar situations is to ask what the co-bidder doing relative to being exclusive. If they refuse to be exclusive, we assume the worst case.

TTFN