A former executive for engineering firm Roche ltée, Groupe-conseil (now Norda Stelo), who pleaded guilty to his role in a bid-rigging scheme, has been handed a 14-month conditional sentence that consists of seven months of house arrest and curfew, as well as 100 hours of community service.
André Côté pleaded guilty in June to participating in a bid-rigging scheme for Quebec City contracts between 2006 and 2010. He admitted to conspiring to divide up Quebec City municipal infrastructure contracts among seven other consulting-engineering firms while he was vice-president of infrastructure for Roche ltée in Quebec.
Following an investigation by the Competition Bureau, criminal charges were laid in 2023 for conspiracy to rig bids, conspiracy to commit fraud, and fraud over $5,000.
In November 2023, the same charges were brought against a second individual, Patrice Mathieu, the former VP of Tecsult Inc. (since acquired by AECOM Inc.) in the same case. Legal proceedings are still ongoing for Mathieu.
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“Rigging bids on public contracts is a serious offence that artificially increases costs and ultimately enriches a handful of individuals and companies while impoverishing taxpayers,” announced Commissioner of Competition Matthew Boswell in a statement from Competition Bureau Canada. “That is why we will continue to fight against this scourge and pursue those who conspire to increase their profits through criminal schemes such as bid-rigging.”
Roche ltée had to pay $750,000 under a 2020 settlement reached by the Public Prosecution Service of Canada for rigging bids for municipal infrastructure contracts in Quebec.
Six other consulting-engineering firms have also reached settlement agreements with the Public Prosecution Service of Canada for bid-rigging municipal infrastructure contracts in Quebec. The total amount of these settlements is more than $12 million.
