Executive of North Carolina Construction Company Pleads Guilty to Multi-Million Dollar Bid-Rigging Conspiracy

The president of a North Carolina construction company pleaded guilty to conspiring to rig bids for maintenance, repair, and operations procurements for military installations in the United States.

According to court documents filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Rockford, Illinois, Brett Sanborn, of Pinehurst, North Carolina, was the president of a construction company that provided goods and services to military bases through procurements administered by the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA). Between at least 2017 and 2021, Sanborn conspired with other individuals and companies to suppress and eliminate competition by rigging bids for the procurements, which were awarded to subcontractors through a competitive bidding process.

“For $6 million, the defendant defrauded his own government and deprived the U.S. Army of the benefits of open and honest competition.” said Deputy Assistant Attorney General Omeed A. Assefi of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. “The Antitrust Division and its Procurement Collusion Strike Force partners will continue to relentlessly pursue bad actors — like the defendant and his co-conspirators — for their assault on taxpayer money dedicated to public projects.”

“Today’s guilty plea demonstrates that we will relentlessly pursue those who attempt to undermine the integrity of the Department of Defense procurement process,” said Special Agent in Charge Christopher Dillard, Department of Defense, Office of Inspector General, Defense Criminal Investigative Service. “Collusion, bid-rigging, and other anti-competitive conduct schemes erode fair competition, waste taxpayer dollars, and jeopardize trust in acquisition systems. DCIS, alongside our prosecutorial partners, will continue to safeguard the Department’s contracting operations and hold accountable anyone who seeks to corrupt them.”

Sanborn and his co-conspirators exchanged emails, calls, and text messages in which they coordinated their bids and agreed in advance on the pricing that they would submit, then submitted those bids to create the illusion of competition. Sanborn and his co-conspirators referred to these artificial, intentionally losing bids as “comp” bids.

In the plea agreement filed today, Sanborn admitted that the volume of commerce attributable to him and related to the conspiracy was approximately $6 million.

Sanborn pleaded guilty to one felony count of restraining trade by conspiring to rig bids, in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act. The maximum penalty for individuals is 10 years in prison and a $1 million criminal fine. The maximum penalty for corporations is a $100 million criminal fine. The fine may be increased to twice the gain derived from the crime or twice the loss suffered by the victims of the crime if either amount is greater than the statutory maximum fine.

A sentencing hearing has not been scheduled in this case. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

The Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS) is investigating this case. The Antitrust Division’s Washington Criminal Section is prosecuting the case.

In November 2019, the Justice Department created the Procurement Collusion Strike Force (PCSF), a joint law enforcement effort to combat antitrust crimes and related fraudulent schemes that impact government procurement, grant and program funding at all levels of government — federal, state and local. To learn more about the PCSF, or to report information on bid rigging, price fixing, market allocation and other anticompetitive conduct related to government spending, go to www.justice.gov/procurement-collusion-strike-force. Anyone with information in connection with this investigation can contact the PCSF at the link listed above. Whistleblowers who voluntarily report original information about antitrust and related offenses that result in criminal fines or other recoveries of at least $1 million may be eligible to receive a whistleblower reward. For more information on the Antitrust Whistleblower Rewards Program, visit www.justice.gov/atr/whistleblower-rewards.