Section 58: Offence Relating to Public Procurement.

(1) Any natural person not being a public officer who contravenes any provision of this Act commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a term of imprisonment not less than 5 calendar years but not exceeding 10 calendar years without an option of fine.
(2) Any offence in contravention of this Act shall be tried by the Federal High Court.
(3) Prosecution of offences under this Act shall be instituted in the name of the Federal Republic of Nigeria by the Attorney-General of the Federation or such other officer of the Federal Ministry of Justice as he may authorize so to do, and in addition, without prejudice to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, he may:
(a) after consultation with the Attorney-General of any state of the federation, authorize the Attorney-General or any other officer of the Ministry of Justice of that state; or
(b) if the relevant authority so requests, authorize any legal practitioner in Nigeria to undertake such prosecution directly or assist therein.
(4) The following shall also constitute offences under this Act;
(a) entering or attempting to enter into a collusive agreement, whether enforceable or not, with a supplier, contractor or consultant where the prices quoted in their respective tenders, proposals or quotations are or would be higher than would have been the case has there not been collusion between the persons concerned;
(b) conducting or attempting to conduct procurement fraud by means of fraudulent and corrupt acts, unlawful influence, undue interest, favor, agreement, bribery or corruption;
(c) directly, indirectly or attempting to influence in any manner the procurement process to obtain an unfair advantage in the award of a procurement contract;
(d) splitting of tenders to enable the evasion of monetary thresholds set;
(e) bid-rigging;
(f) altering any procurement document with intent to influence the outcome of a tender proceeding;
(g) uttering or using fake documents or encouraging their use; and
(h) willful refusal to allow the Bureau or its officers to have access to any procurement records.
(5) Any person who while carrying out his duties as an officer of the Bureau, or any procuring entity who contravenes any provision of this Act commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a cumulative punishment of:
(a) a term of imprisonment of not less than 5 calendar years without any option of fine; and
(b) summary dismissal from government services.
(6) Any legal person that contravenes any provision of this Act commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a cumulative penalty of:
(a) debarment from all public procurements for a period not less than 5 calendar years; and
(b) a fine equivalent to 25% of the value of the procurement in issue.
(7) Where any legal person shall be convicted pursuant to subsection (4) of this Section, every director of the company as listed on its records at the Corporate Affairs Commission shall be guilty of an offence and is liable on conviction to a term of imprisonment not less than 3 calendar years but not exceeding 5 calendar years without an option of fine.
(8) An alternation pursuant to subsection 4(f) shall include:
(a) insertion of documents such as bid security or tax clearance certificate which were not submitted at bid opening; and
(b) request for clarification in a manner not permitted under this Act.
(9) Collusion shall be presumed from a set of acts from which it can be assumed that there was an understanding, implicit, formal or informal, overt or covert under which each person involved reasonably expected that the other would adopt a particular course of action which would interfere with the faithful and proper application of the provisions of this Act.
(10) Bid-rigging pursuant to subsection 4(e) means an agreement between persons whereby:
(a) offers submitted have been pre-arranged between them; or
(b) their conduct has had the effect of directly or indirectly restricting free and open competition, distorting the competitiveness of the procurement process and leading to and escalation or increase in costs or loss of value to the national treasury.
(11) For the purposes of the presumption under Section 51 (7) of this Section, consideration shall be given to a suspect's ability to control the procurement proceedings or to control a solicitation or the conditions of the contract in question, whether total or partial.
(12) For the purposes of Section 59(5) of this Section, it shall be sufficient to prove that a reasonable business person should have known that his action would result in his company or firm having an undue advantage over other bidders to the detriment of the national treasury.