Manager instructed to give confidential information

The whistleblowing report alleges that the procurement manager of the RA was instructed by the Chief Executive of the RA to give confidential information on the budget price to BuildWell.  The investigator could examine the following matters.

• Identify from the RA’s tender procedures whether disclosure of budget price to bidders is legitimate (i.e. was it genuinely confidential information).
• Identify from the RA’s invitation to tender and related documents whether the budget price was disclosed to the bidders, and, if so, was it equally disclosed to all bidders, or was it disclosed only to BuildWell, or only to a few bidders.

If there is no evidence from the above documents of disclosure, it could have been secretly disclosed.

Depending on the outcome of the above steps, take the following steps.

• Interview the Chief Executive and procurement manager of the RA to identify whether any such instruction is admitted to have been given or received.
• Interview the procurement manager and the relevant managers of BuildWell to identify whether any information on the budget price is admitted to have been sent or received.
• Review the emails and social media messages of the Chief Executive, procurement manager, and the relevant managers of BuildWell to identify any written evidence of such instruction, or of such budget price disclosure.
• Review BuildWell’s bid price to assess whether it is unusually close to the budget price.

If evidence of such instruction or disclosure of budget price is obtained:

• is this a legitimate disclosure provided equally to all parties; or is the disclosure illegal or improper, being provided to only one or a few bidders
• if the disclosure was not legitimate, did BuildWell act on such disclosure, and benefit in any way (e.g. by being able to pitch its bid price sufficiently near the budget price so as to improve its chances of winning)
• is there any evidence, or can it be inferred, that the instruction by the CEO, or disclosure by the tender manager, was corrupt.

If it is established that the CEO did give an improper instruction to reveal the budget price only to BuildWell, this suggests that the CEO did have an ownership interest in BuildWell (as per first issue), or is receiving an unlawful benefit from BuildWell.