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The Office of Fair Trading has been ordered to pay 拢1.2m in court costs to contractors it accused and fined for bid-rigging in 2009.

The Competition Appeals Tribunal, which earlier this year cut the fines imposed by the OFT on appeal after finding it had wrongly calculated fines and exaggerated the serious of offences, has ordered the regulator to pay appeal costs for nine contractors.

This includes contractor Kier, which will have 拢200,000 of its 拢427,113 appeal costs paid, and Sisk, which will have 拢170,000 of its 拢559,014 paid.

The Appeals Tribunal found that the contractors awarded costs could be identified as 鈥渨inners鈥� in their fine appeals, and therefore should have a proportion of their costs paid.

However the Tribunal put a 拢200,000 鈥渃ap鈥� on the costs that could be recovered, and turned down the appeal for costs for two contractors, Quarmby Construction and St James Securities, on the grounds they could not necessarily be identified as winners in their appeals.

The appeals are part of the continuing fall-out from the OFT鈥檚 investigation into bid-rigging in the construction industry, which originally imposed fines of 拢130m on 103 companies after finding them guilty of a variety of offences. Most were accused of 鈥渃over-pricing鈥� where fake tenders were submitted for jobs in order to keep a relationship with a client, despite there being no intention of winning the work.

The fines for 25 companies that appealed were cut from 拢76m to 拢13m by the Competition Appeals Tribunal.

The nine firms the Tribunal has ordered the OFT to pay costs to are:

• Kier 拢200,000
• Ballast 拢200,000
• Bowmer 拢150,000
• Corringway 拢170,000
• Thomas Vale 拢142,129.24
• Sisk 拢170,000
• Seddon 拢45,642.35
• Interclass 拢31,374.96
• Tomlinson 拢79,872.80

However, the Tribunal said it was 鈥渢aken aback鈥� by the 拢1.14m figure Quarmby Construction and St James Securities, the two contractors who failed to win a costs award, had been claiming, labelling it 鈥渃learly disproportionate.鈥�