1. Introduction

The expression “landing bid” is not a standard statutory term in Chinese competition law. In procurement practice, it can be understood as a pre-arranged or strategically engineered bid intended to ensure that a particular bidder “lands” the contract, while other bids are submitted merely to create an appearance of genuine competition. This is closely related to cover bidding, complementary bidding, bid rotation, bid allocation, bid suppression, and other forms of collusive tendering.

In China, such conduct may engage several legal regimes simultaneously:

• Anti-Monopoly Law (AML) — particularly the prohibition on horizontal agreements restricting or eliminating competition;
• Anti-Unfair Competition Law, especially provisions concerning collusive bidding;
• Tendering and Bidding Law;
• Government Procurement Law, where public procurement is involved;
• Criminal Law, Article 223, concerning the crime of collusive bidding;
• Administrative regulations and sector-specific procurement rules.

China's recent enforcement direction is particularly significant. In May 2025, the Supreme People's Court and National Development and Reform Commission published six representative collusive-bidding cases covering construction, medical procurement, education, land contracting and other areas. The cases expressly identified manipulation of evaluation scores, tailor-made tender specifications, coordinated bidding, intermediary manipulation and bids designed to evade data-monitoring systems as important forms of misconduct.

2. Meaning of Landing Bid Transparency Issues

A landing-bid arrangement generally involves three stages:

Stage 1 – Selection of the intended winner

The participants decide in advance which bidder should obtain the contract.

Stage 2 – Construction of apparent competition

Other participants submit:

• artificially high bids;
• deliberately defective bids;
• non-competitive technical proposals;
• predetermined prices;
• bids calculated not to win; or
• multiple bids controlled by the same economic interests.

These are essentially cover or supporting bids.

Stage 3 – Delivery of the contract

The intended bidder submits the economically or technically competitive bid and wins.

Thus:

Apparent competition + concealed coordination + predetermined winner = core landing-bid transparency concern.

3. Why Transparency Matters

A competitive tender should allow the procuring entity to discover the bidder offering the best combination of:

• price;
• quality;
• technology;
• delivery;
• capacity;
• service;
• risk allocation.

A landing-bid arrangement distorts this process because the apparent number of competitors does not correspond to the actual number of independent competitive decisions.

For example:

The result can be higher procurement costs, reduced quality, exclusion of genuine competitors and inefficient allocation of public or private resources.

4. Principal Forms of Landing-Bid Transparency Problems

A. Cover Bids

Competitors agree that one participant will win while the others submit deliberately inferior bids.

This is one of the clearest forms of bid rigging.

B. Bid Rotation

Competitors agree to rotate the successful bidder across successive tenders.

For example:

• Tender 1 → A wins;
• Tender 2 → B wins;
• Tender 3 → C wins;
• Tender 4 → A wins again.

Although every tender formally contains multiple bidders, the market may actually operate according to an allocation agreement.

C. Bid Suppression

A competitor agrees not to bid, withdraws a bid or submits a non-competitive proposal so that the designated bidder wins.

D. Price Coordination

Participants exchange or coordinate:

• minimum prices;
• discounts;
• margins;
• percentage reductions;
• reserve-price information; or
• expected winning prices.

A tender therefore ceases to function as an independent price-discovery mechanism.

E. Tailor-Made Tender Specifications

A procuring official or intermediary may design specifications around the characteristics of a particular supplier.

This is particularly serious because the distortion occurs before the bidding stage.

The 2025 Chinese Supreme People's Court case concerning medical equipment is an important illustration: the hospital official worked with the prospective supplier and arranged tender specifications based upon the supplier's particular MRI-equipment parameters.

F. Manipulation of Evaluation Scores

The tender may appear transparent at the submission stage but be manipulated during evaluation.

Possible techniques include:

• influencing evaluators;
• obtaining evaluator credentials;
• changing scores;
• directing evaluators to favour a particular bidder;
• manipulating electronic evaluation accounts.

The 2025 Qingdao case specifically involved manipulation of evaluators' scoring accounts to give the preferred bidder the highest score.

G. Multiple Bids Through Related or Controlled Entities

One economic actor may create or control several nominally independent bidders.

The result is artificial bidder density.

For competition analysis, investigators therefore need to determine whether apparently separate bidders were genuinely independent.

5. Legal Framework in China

A. Anti-Monopoly Law

Horizontal coordination between competitors concerning bids can amount to an agreement that eliminates or restricts competition.

The principal concerns include agreements concerning:

• prices;
• output or supply;
• market allocation;
• customers;
• trading conditions; and
• other arrangements having the effect of restricting competition.

Chinese academic analysis has also noted that bid rigging historically created interpretive questions concerning the precise enumeration of prohibited horizontal agreements under the AML, although enforcement authorities have treated coordinated bidding as anticompetitive conduct.

B. Anti-Unfair Competition Law

China's Anti-Unfair Competition Law separately addresses collusive bidding.

This is important because not every landing-bid dispute necessarily needs to be characterised exclusively as an AML cartel.

The factual question is whether the conduct constitutes prohibited coordination between the bidder and other participants that excludes or restricts fair competition.

C. Tendering and Bidding Law

The Tendering and Bidding Law provides the principal procedural framework for competitive tendering.

The law is relevant to:

• equal treatment of bidders;
• confidentiality;
• tender specifications;
• bid evaluation;
• prohibited collusion;
• fraudulent qualification;
• bid withdrawal;
• award procedures.

Therefore, a landing-bid scheme may violate both competition principles and procurement rules.

D. Criminal Law

Where the conduct reaches the statutory threshold, Article 223 of the Criminal Law concerning the crime of collusive bidding can apply.

The 2025 Supreme People's Court cases demonstrate that Chinese courts increasingly examine bid-rigging evidence through:

• tender documents;
• electronic records;
• communications;
• scoring data;
• financial flows;
• bid-price patterns;
• qualification documents; and
• relationships between bidders. 

6. Transparency Indicators

A landing-bid investigation should not rely upon one suspicious fact alone.

Important indicators include:

Pricing indicators

• identical prices;
• suspiciously similar discounts;
• mathematically coordinated bids;
• unusually large price gaps;
• rotating winning prices.

Document indicators

• identical grammatical errors;
• identical formatting;
• identical metadata;
• common authorship;
• identical technical descriptions.

Corporate indicators

• common directors;
• common employees;
• common addresses;
• common telephone numbers;
• common beneficial owners.

Behavioural indicators

• bidders repeatedly winning in predetermined patterns;
• competitors consistently losing despite apparently competitive bids;
• unexplained withdrawals;
• competitors sharing confidential tender information.

Digital indicators

• common IP addresses;
• common devices;
• synchronized uploads;
• shared files;
• common electronic signatures;
• unusual access to tender systems.

Financial indicators

• payments between bidders;
• compensation to losing bidders;
• unusual subcontracting arrangements;
• post-award transfers of work;
• payments described as “consulting” or “coordination” fees.

7. Six Important Chinese Case Laws

Case 1 — Zhang Mou Collusive Bidding Case, Qingdao

Issue: Manipulation of evaluation scores.

A company employee responsible for procurement wanted a particular bidder's associated company to win. He instructed evaluators to give that company high scores and eventually obtained access to evaluation accounts. The accounts were then used to award the preferred bidder the highest score.

The Qingdao Laoshan District People's Court convicted Zhang of collusive bidding; the Qingdao Intermediate People's Court upheld the result on appeal.

Significance

This case demonstrates that transparency cannot be assessed merely by looking at published tender documents.

A formally competitive tender can still be anticompetitive if the evaluation mechanism is manipulated.

Lesson:
Control of the evaluation stage can be as important as coordination of bid prices.

Case 2 — Wang Moujia & Wang Mouyi Tea-Mountain Tender Case

Two brothers agreed to coordinate their bids for a public tender concerning management rights over a tea-growing area.

They used their own names and those of relatives and others to create numerous nominal bidders. They also threatened competitors and offered payments to other participants to induce them to participate as supporting bidders.

The Jian'ou People's Court convicted both defendants of collusive bidding.

Significance

This is a particularly useful case for understanding artificial bidder participation.

A tender containing 13 apparent participants does not necessarily represent 13 independent competitive decisions.

Lesson:
Bidder numbers cannot be treated as a sufficient measure of competition.

Case 3 — Li Mouqiong Medical Equipment Tender Case

Li Mouqiong, the head of a hospital, worked with a prospective supplier concerning the procurement of MRI equipment.

The supplier provided equipment parameters, and the hospital official arranged for tender specifications to be formulated around those parameters. Multiple companies were then used in the bidding process, ultimately resulting in the supplier's company winning the contract.

The contract value was approximately RMB 8.23 million. The court convicted Li of collusive bidding alongside other offences.

Significance

This is an important example of pre-tender foreclosure.

The manipulation occurred before bids were submitted.

Lesson:
Competition analysis must examine the entire procurement lifecycle:

specification → eligibility → tender → bidding → evaluation → award.

Case 4 — Yuan Mou & Zhao Mou Education Procurement Case

The defendants sought to control a public-school food-supply procurement project.

The conduct involved:

• influencing the appointment of the tender agency;
• bribery;
• dividing tender lots;
• prior examination of bid documents;
• coordinating the contents of different bids;
• predetermining the winning supplier.

The winning contracts totalled approximately RMB 65.6555 million. The court convicted the defendants of collusive bidding and related bribery offences.

Significance

This case demonstrates vertical and horizontal dimensions of landing-bid manipulation.

The scheme did not merely involve competing suppliers. It allegedly involved the:

• prospective bidder;
• tender agency;
• intermediaries; and
• persons influencing the procurement process.

Lesson:
Transparency requires independence not merely among bidders but also among procurement intermediaries.

Case 5 — Wang Mou Collusive Bidding and Forged Documents Case

Wang created forged official and corporate seals and assisted another participant in using borrowed or improperly obtained corporate qualifications to participate in construction tenders.

False social-security documents were also produced for use in the bidding process.

The winning projects had a combined value exceeding RMB 8.46 million. The court imposed liability for collusive bidding and several document-forgery offences.

Significance

This case demonstrates how qualification transparency can be undermined.

A bidder may appear eligible while its:

• employees;
• qualifications;
• social-security records;
• corporate identity; or
• technical capacity

are actually supplied or fabricated by another entity.

Lesson:
Verification of bidder identity and qualification is an essential part of competition protection.

Case 6 — Pan Mou Public Construction Tender Case

This case concerned a public construction project in Hangzhou.

The bidders borrowed the qualifications of more than ten construction companies and coordinated their bid reductions. They used a stepwise pricing pattern designed to avoid big-data monitoring and enable the intended bidder to reach the expert-review stage.

The project-side representative was subsequently bribed and helped the intended company obtain favourable evaluation scores.

The court convicted Pan of collusive bidding and bribery.

Significance

This case is especially important for modern electronic procurement transparency.

It shows that sophisticated collusive bidders may deliberately design pricing patterns to avoid automated detection.

The case also resulted in judicial recommendations concerning weaknesses in:

• qualification verification;
• tender-evaluation rules;
• electronic tendering security; and
• procurement supervision. 

Lesson:
Transparency increasingly requires algorithmic and data-driven monitoring, not merely documentary review.

8. What These Cases Establish Collectively

The six cases reveal a broad enforcement approach:

Thus, landing-bid transparency should be treated as a whole-process competition issue rather than merely a question of whether the final bid price was genuine.

9. Evidentiary Issues

One of the most important practical questions is:

How can a competition authority or court prove that apparently independent bids were actually coordinated?

Direct evidence may include:

• emails;
• WhatsApp/WeChat communications;
• agreements;
• recordings;
• payment records;
• instructions from procurement officials;
• admissions.

But collusion is frequently concealed.

Therefore, circumstantial evidence becomes important.

A combination of:

1. identical bid documents;
2. suspicious pricing;
3. common personnel;
4. common IP addresses;
5. repeated winning patterns;
6. communications;
7. financial transfers; and
8. post-award subcontracting

may collectively demonstrate coordination.

The SPC specifically emphasised examination of tender documents, electronic data, methods of conduct and financial flows in collusive-bidding cases.

10. Competition Effects

Landing-bid arrangements can produce several competition harms.

1. Price inflation

The procurer does not receive the price that genuine competition would have generated.

2. Exclusion of genuine competitors

Independent suppliers may abandon the market after repeatedly losing manipulated tenders.

3. Reduced innovation

Where the winner is predetermined, competitors have less incentive to develop superior products or services.

4. Quality deterioration

The winning bidder need not compete aggressively on quality if competitors are only nominal.

5. Market allocation

Repeated landing bids can effectively divide customers, regions or projects among competitors.

6. Corruption risks

Procurement officials or intermediaries may become participants in the scheme.

11. Distinguishing Legitimate Joint Bidding from Landing-Bid Collusion

Not every consortium or joint bid is unlawful.

A legitimate consortium may be justified where firms genuinely need to combine:

• technology;
• financing;
• capacity;
• geographical coverage;
• complementary expertise.

The key distinction is independence of competitive decision-making.

Legitimate consortium

Firms genuinely combine complementary capabilities to submit one competitive proposal.

Landing-bid arrangement

Competitors create multiple apparent bids while secretly coordinating who will win.

The existence of several companies therefore does not itself establish competition.

12. Compliance Measures for Procuring Entities

A robust procurement system should include:

Before tender

• neutral technical specifications;
• objective qualification criteria;
• independent drafting;
• conflict-of-interest declarations;
• market consultation.

During tender

• encrypted submissions;
• controlled access to bids;
• evaluator independence;
• audit trails;
• separation of technical and commercial evaluation.

After submission

• price-pattern analysis;
• document similarity analysis;
• IP/device analysis;
• beneficial-ownership screening;
• relationship analysis among bidders.

After award

• monitoring of subcontracting;
• investigation of unexplained payments;
• verification of actual performance;
• comparison with subsequent tenders.

13. Role of Data Analytics

Modern landing-bid detection can use:

Bid data → price analysis → bidder relationships → document comparison → digital footprints → financial analysis → risk score → investigation

Particularly useful indicators include:

• identical bid percentages;
• unusual clustering of prices;
• recurring bidder combinations;
• geographical rotation;
• repeated winner-loser relationships;
• suspiciously identical documents;
• synchronized electronic submissions.

China's 2025 Pan case is significant because the participants allegedly used stepwise bid-placement techniques specifically to evade big-data monitoring, illustrating the continuing technological arms race between procurement monitoring and sophisticated collusion.

14. Relationship with Bid Transparency

The concept can therefore be expressed through the following framework:

Genuine Tender

Independent bidders
↓
Independent price formation
↓
Independent technical proposals
↓
Independent evaluation
↓
Competitive award

Landing-Bid Scheme

Predetermined winner
↓
Cover/supporting bidders
↓
Coordinated prices/documents
↓
Manipulated eligibility/evaluation
↓
Artificial competition
↓
Predetermined award

The second structure undermines the fundamental economic function of competitive procurement.

15. Remedies and Consequences

Depending on the applicable legal regime and facts, consequences may include:

• administrative penalties;
• cancellation or re-tendering;
• exclusion from procurement;
• blacklisting or procurement restrictions;
• confiscation of unlawful gains;
• damages or civil liability;
• criminal prosecution;
• penalties against responsible individuals;
• investigation of bribery and corruption;
• judicial or regulatory recommendations for procurement-system reform.

Recent Chinese enforcement demonstrates an increasingly whole-chain approach, addressing not only the bidder but also tendering agencies, procurement officials, intermediaries and other participants involved in the arrangement.

16. Conclusion

Landing Bid Transparency Issues arise when a procurement process gives the appearance of independent competition while the winner, prices, supporting bids or evaluation outcome have been coordinated in advance.

The principal competition-law concerns are:

1. cover bidding;
2. bid rotation;
3. bid suppression;
4. price coordination;
5. artificial bidder participation;
6. tailor-made specifications;
7. evaluation manipulation;
8. false qualifications;
9. procurement-agent collusion; and
10. electronic techniques designed to evade detection.

The six 2025 Chinese representative cases are particularly valuable because they demonstrate that transparency is examined across the entire procurement chain, from specification design to bidder qualification, bid submission, electronic evaluation, award and financial flows.