50 arrested over suspected bid-rigging

The ICAC and the police arrest 50 people on suspicion of bid-rigging and bribery. Some have a triad background.The building maintenance projects involved 27 housing estates and buildings across Hong Kong, with an estimated contract value of 500 million dollars.

The anti-corruption operation involves three government entities: the ICAC, Police and Competition Commission. Fifty people, aged between 24 and 77, are arrested in the two-day movement.

The ICAC suspected a project contractor, also a syndicate's head, to have secured several building maintenance contracts through bribery after receiving public complaints. Authorities later identified renovation projects for three composite and private residential buildings in the Eastern District, Wan Chai, and Yau Tsim Mong District, with contract values totalling 200 million dollars. In that enforcement action, the ICAC arrested 10 people, aged between 39 and 77, including the project contractor, project consultants and members of Owners' Corporations.

Sources say the affected sites include Metropole Building in North Point. The building's maintenance was scheduled to take place last year, but it was postponed by the Tai Po fire.

Meanwhile, the Competition Commission's investigation targeted a private housing estate in Kowloon City district. The agency found that the same syndicate was suspected of involving in anti-competitive conduct in multiple projects' tendering process.

Separately, the police conducted an enforcement operation in connection with a case of conspiring to use false instruments relating to building maintenance works. Three individuals were arrested. They alledgedly submitted 13 forged works completion certificates for 13 residential flats in a Hong Kong Island housing estate to the Buildings Department in July and August 2022.