This winter is proving to be a bitter one for people across the country battling heavy snows. It is also a dark time for the firms whose decades of rigging bids for bridge construction was exposed.
As punishment, they have been banned from taking part in bidding for major contracts, and many companies have been forced to spin off their bridge construction divisions or transfer employees to sections that are seeing more business to cope with the decline in work.
The bid-rigging scandal broke in 2004, and last September the Fair Trade Commission ordered 45 companies to stop the practice. Both the central and local governments have banned the firms named in the scam from entering bids for construction projects.
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