In December 2025, the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection explicitly designated construction projects and bidding as key areas for rectification—characterized by concentrated power, substantial capital, and abundant resources—and called for strict investigations into corruption involving collusion between government officials and business interests. However, amid this high-pressure environment, a deeper legal principle has come to the fore: a crackdown does not equate to indiscriminate action; precision is the hallmark of the rule of law.
Just as this year’s National Day holiday had ended, attorney Pan Nanyu was en route to Nanchang to handle another case. The moment his flight landed and his cell phone signal was restored, a message popped up in his work chat group: “Attorney Pan, the case has finally been dismissed!” It was from a client involved in a bid-rigging case in Changshan, Zhejiang. Local public security authorities had officially issued a decision to dismiss the case, concluding that “there were no facts constituting a crime.” This means that at a time when the system of leniency for guilty pleas and acceptance of punishment is highly prevalent and the scope for not-guilty defenses has been severely restricted, this case—involving tens of millions in funds and in which the client had been accused of “organizing bid-rigging”—ultimately concluded perfectly with the case being dismissed due to lack of evidence.
I. Shanghai Technical Expert Drawn into a “10 Million Project” Dispute
The individual involved in this case, Mr. T, is a senior expert who has worked in stage equipment technology in Shanghai for over sixty years. He had previously served as the head of a construction company and was in semi-retirement.
In 2021, Mr. L—an acquaintance of many years—approached Mr. T, stating that a key cultural project worth tens of millions in Changshan County, Zhejiang Province (a project undertaken by a bureau of China Construction, a well-known central state-owned enterprise) was about to enter the bidding phase. Mr. L indicated that the necessary connections had already been secured but that Mr. T needed to provide financial support. In other words, Mr. L would handle the liaison, while Mr. T would provide the funding.
The theater project in question, located in Changshan County, Quzhou City, was a key local cultural project with a contract value of tens of millions. Believing this to be a standard technical collaboration, Mr. T agreed to Mr. L’s request.
Before the official bid award, a bureau of China Construction, in order to speed up progress, required Mr. T to begin construction ahead of schedule. Trusting the state-owned enterprise, Mr. T immediately organized his staff to advance funds and commence work. However, after the bid was confirmed, Mr. L unilaterally terminated the contract with Mr. T because he had received a promise of a higher referral fee from another investor. By this point, Mr. T had already advanced more than 400,000 yuan. Following the termination, Mr. T was not only unable to collect payment for the work already completed but also could not recover the funds he had advanced for migrant workers’ wages and materials. With the project halted and funds exhausted, Mr. T’s company faced severe financial difficulties.
After Mr. T withdrew, the project was taken over by another company and completed in 2023. Surprisingly, in January 2025, this long-concluded bidding process was reported for suspected bid-rigging. Mr. T, who had previously advanced funds for construction, was charged as a suspect in organizing a bid-rigging scheme involving three companies. Repeated summonses from the economic crime investigation unit restricted his personal freedom. Having gone from being a technical expert to a criminal suspect, Mr. T found it difficult to comprehend: he had advanced the funds, participated in the construction, and gained no illegal benefits—so why had he become the organizer of a criminal scheme?
II. The Evidentiary Value of a Phone Call Recording
The case dates back to 2021. In addition to Mr. L and Mr. T, the original project partners included Mr. Z, who was responsible for the design. It had been agreed that Mr. Z would receive 2 million in design fees, but because Mr. L unilaterally terminated the contract with Mr. T, Mr. Z’s design fees were never paid.
After repeatedly failing to resolve the issue with a certain bureau of China Construction, Z began filing police reports and petitioning the authorities. Initially, the police considered this a common economic dispute in the construction industry and did not open a case. However, Z subsequently provided the police with a recording of a conference call between the three parties.
The recording captured the three parties—each representing a different company—discussing bidding strategies and allocating bid prices during the meeting. During the preliminary investigation, this recording served as direct evidence of bid-rigging. Furthermore, since the theater in question was a major local prestige project, the police formally opened an investigation after reporting the matter to their superiors. Based on the recording and the fact that Mr. T had participated in preliminary briefings and paid the platform membership fees on behalf of others, the investigating authorities initially constructed a case arguing that Mr. T was the “organizer.”
However, the crux of this case lies in the fact that the investigating authorities focused solely on the superficial appearance of “collusion” in the recording while overlooking the broader context of “starting the project first and sorting out the details later,” as well as the truth that Mr. T, as the advance financier, did not actually profit from the arrangement.
III. Not Guilty Defense + Fallback on Corporate Liability
In the construction industry, the phenomenon of “starting the project first and formalizing the procedures later”—where the tendering entity pre-selects a contractor and instructs them to begin work, then retroactively completes the bidding process—is not uncommon. In this case, a certain bureau of China Construction had already finalized the winning bidder through internal price comparisons and collective discussions before the formal bidding process began. This means that by the time the bidding process was launched, the outcome had long been predetermined, and the subsequent procedures were merely to satisfy the company’s internal compliance requirements.
From the perspective of actual infringement of legal interests, such conduct does not constitute the crime of bid-rigging. The Criminal Law established this offense to protect the order of fair competition in the bidding market and the legitimate property rights of relevant parties. In this case, the core legal interests protected by this offense were never infringed upon from the outset:
First, the interests of the tendering entity were not harmed. The leadership of a certain bureau’s project department at China Construction collectively decided on the winning bidder; they themselves were the decision-makers.
Second, the interests of other bidders were not harmed. The three companies that participated as “decoy bidders” were all contacted directly by Mr. L and had no intention of winning the bid from the outset. In the absence of genuine competitors, there was no situation of “exclusion.”
Third, the order of fair competition was not compromised. Since the tendering party had no intention of selecting a contractor through competition, a market competition mechanism never materialized; consequently, the subsequent “collusive” conduct could not have infringed upon the order of fair competition.
Given the extreme difficulty of mounting a not-guilty defense in judicial practice, Attorney Pan Nanyu, while adhering to the not-guilty defense, formulated a fallback strategy centered on “corporate crime.” By arguing that this case constituted a corporate crime committed by the tendering party—a certain bureau of China Construction—he, on the one hand, cut off the path for Mr. T, as a “non-project manager,” to bear criminal liability; on the other hand, he prompted the investigating authorities to exercise caution when reviewing and prosecuting central state-owned enterprises. This “dual-track” defense strategy laid the foundation for the case’s ultimate outcome.
IV. Refuting the Prosecution’s Case and Establishing the Defense’s Evidence Framework
Once the strategy was established, the focus shifted to the evidence. After reviewing the case files, Attorney Pan discovered that the prosecution had constructed a rigorous chain of evidence, attempting to pin Mr. T as the “organizer.” To refute the charges, it was essential to use objective evidence to redefine the factual boundaries and ensure a closed loop of evidence, leaving the prosecution no room to request supplementary investigations or corrections.
To this end, Attorney Pan compiled over 300 pages of defense evidence and constructed a narrative framework across three levels:
The first set consisted of core objective evidence. During the review, Mr. T recalled that Mr. L had used two WeChat accounts and had sent a screenshot of a chat with a manager from a certain bureau of China Construction, which read, “You’re the one” and “25 points.” This occurred two months before the official bidding process began. Supplemented by a relationship diagram and a timeline of preliminary proposal presentations, this directly proved the fact that the project had been pre-arranged, thereby refuting the prosecution’s fallacy that “collusion occurred only after the process had begun.”
The second set consisted of corroborating evidence from external sources. To prevent the prosecution from using supplementary investigations to persuade witnesses to alter their testimonies, Attorney Pan collected receipts for T’s early construction work, site entry records, and witness statements from nearly ten migrant workers. The interplay of physical and testimonial evidence reinforced the fact that “early construction work signified a predetermined winner,” ensuring that the facts of the case could not be easily overturned.
The third set consisted of overarching structural evidence. To fortify the final line of defense, Attorney Pan obtained internal documents from a certain bureau of China Construction, the complete set of bidding materials, and the construction contract. This evidence demonstrated that the selection of the winning bidder reflected the will of the organization and that the benefits accrued to the organization, thereby precisely severing the chain of liability attributable to Mr. T as an individual.
V. Two Returns for Further Investigation, Case Dismissed Due to Lack of Evidence
After the evidence framework was complete, Attorney Pan went to the local procuratorate to discuss the case. Initially, the handling prosecutor stated that the case was uncontested and that an indictment would be filed shortly; however, upon hearing about the evidence prepared by the defense attorney, the prosecutor agreed to a meeting.
In a reception room, Attorney Pan directly presented the chat records between Mr. L and the head of a certain bureau of China Construction, in which the latter stated, “You’re the one.” After reviewing the evidence, the prosecutor immediately realized there was a fundamental issue with the case’s legal characterization. Attorney Pan promptly pointed out: “If the winning bid was already determined before the bidding process began, the so-called bid-rigging is merely a procedural confirmation of a predetermined outcome and does not infringe upon the order of fair competition. Even if we take a step back, this constitutes a corporate crime on the part of the bidding entity, and I recommend that the case be dismissed without prosecution.”
The prosecutor did not respond directly but indicated that the case needed to be returned for supplementary investigation.
During the first round of supplementary investigation, the police only conducted additional interviews with the project manager and technical director from a certain bureau of China Construction responsible for the project, intending to bolster the compliance of the bidding process. After the supplementary investigation materials were submitted, Attorney Pan immediately pointed out to the handling prosecutor that the peripheral testimony bypassed the key official who made the “you’re set” promise and could not undermine the objective fact that the project had long been pre-determined.
Faced with the impasse of a second return for further investigation and the risk of public prosecution being reinstated at any moment, Attorney Pan decided to shift his defense strategy and proactively visited the local economic crime investigation department to discuss the case face-to-face with the investigators. He objectively analyzed for the investigators the two possible outcomes if the case proceeded: either the procuratorate would issue a “no prosecution due to reasonable doubt” decision, or the case would be classified as a corporate crime committed by a certain bureau of China Construction. Regardless of the outcome, neither would fulfill the investigative authorities’ original objective of combating crime. Based on this, Attorney Pan suggested that it would be better for the public security authorities to directly dismiss the case in accordance with the law, thereby resolving the matter at its root.
The investigating officer raised a question: Since the case had already been transferred to the procuratorate, how could the public security authorities dismiss it? In response, Attorney Pan provided the legal basis: According to Article 296 of the “Regulations on the Procedures for Public Security Organs in Handling Criminal Cases” (2020 Amendment): “For cases subject to supplementary investigation, if the public security organs discover significant changes in the originally established facts of the crime and determine that criminal liability should not be pursued, they shall dismiss the case or terminate the investigation of the suspect, and notify the People’s Procuratorate that requested the supplementary investigation of the relevant circumstances.” This means that public security organs have the legal authority to withdraw and dismiss a case without the consent of the procuratorate.
Shortly thereafter, Attorney Pan Nanyu received an official notification from the People’s Procuratorate: Given that the public security authorities were unable to supplement the key evidence required for conviction, the case was ultimately returned to them. The local Public Security Bureau, pursuant to Article 163 of the Criminal Procedure Law, determined that “there were no facts constituting a crime” and formally issued a decision to dismiss the case. Thus, what appeared to be an indisputable bid-rigging case ultimately came to a satisfactory conclusion with an acquittal.
From being accused of “organizing bid-rigging” to the case being dismissed with an acquittal, the handling of this case confirms the principles of defense in bid-rigging cases: determining guilt or innocence cannot be limited to the superficial appearance of “bid-rigging”; one must look beyond the surface to the essence of the legal interest at stake—examining whether a genuine competitive mechanism exists and identifying who the decision-makers and beneficiaries behind the scenes are.
For the defendant, the acquittal in this case represents a return to peace after a harrowing ordeal, with the injustice cleared; for the defense counsel, it is the finest testament to upholding the presumption of innocence and using professional expertise to challenge entrenched assumptions.
