Bid rigging happens when groups of firms conspire to raise prices or lower the quality of goods, works or services offered in public tenders. Governments can help fight bid rigging by training their procurement officials to design tenders that prevent collusion, and detect conspiracies amongst bidders in the tender submissions. 

The OECD Recommendation for Fighting Bid Rigging, its Guidelines and in-country projects can help governments in the fight against bid rigging in public tenders.

Dominant firms that abuse their position can exclude other market players and affect competition. Laws and policies against abuses by dominant firms aim at protecting consumers from being exploited and competitors from being excluded from the competitive process. Traditional dominance assessment tools, such as a turnover and market shares, remain relevant, but might fall short in digital markets and fail to capture the true extent of platforms’ market power.  

Mergers and acquisitions between companies can affect prices, quality, and product availability if they lessen competition in the marketplace. Merger reviews are an important tool for governments to prevent consumer harm and maintain competitive markets. Transnational mergers demand governments to ensure effective cooperation and coordination of in their merger reviews, in order to avoid inconsistencies and unnecessary burdens for merging parties. 

The OECD organises roundtables concerning merger review on a regular basis. The OECD adopted the Recommendation on Merger Review calling for well-informed, effective, efficient, and timely merger analysis. Merger review in digital markets is receiving special attention in past years, as perceived underenforcement has sparked a debate on whether new theories of harm are needed in these markets. The zero-price nature of many digital products and services has allowed many platforms to elude notification thresholds, threatening to undermine the effectiveness of merger review. Competition authorities may complement their merger review enforcement practices by considering non-price factors, such as privacy and data security, the prevalence and influence of advertising content, levels of innovation, ease of consumer switching between platforms, and overall consumer choice, in order to adapt merger review frameworks to the unique dynamics of the digital economy.

Competition law enforcement should be fair, predictable and transparent. Effective enforcement rests on the respect of effective rules and sound practices applied by independent agencies with sufficient resources to deliver on their mandate to protect competitive markets.

Through fair, transparent and independent procedures, governments can maintain public confidence in competition law enforcement and ultimately encourage voluntary compliance and uphold the rule of law. Enforcement should always respect the confidentiality of investigated parties’ information, the protection of communications with their legal counsel, and the granting of access to exculpatory and inculpatory evidence in the case file.