Al’s Asphalt Paving: The Losing Bid Was Part of the Plan

The Al’s Asphalt bid rigging case concerned paving companies choosing who would win a contract, then submitting deliberately losing bids to make the choice look competitive. The Justice Department’s account of the criminal case confirms that Al’s Asphalt pleaded guilty. For someone inside the bidding process, the revealing detail is the losing offer: it helped another bidder win while giving the customer a reason to believe the price had been tested.

Al’s Asphalt Paving Company was based in Taylor, Michigan. The government’s criminal information, the document charging the company, describes work on large driveways, parking lots and private roadways. Potential customers typically wanted bids from at least two paving companies and reviewed those offers before awarding a contract.

That buying process gave the scheme described by the government its opening. The customer asked for competing prices. The bidders supplied the paperwork while depriving the customer of the competition it was meant to provide.

How the Cover Bid Worked

A cover bid is an offer designed to lose so that an agreed winner can get the job. In the criminal information against Al’s Asphalt, the Justice Department alleged that the companies discussed which paving contracts each wanted to win, agreed to rig the bidding and asked one another for intentionally uncompetitive offers.

The pricing exchange made the arrangement work. According to the filing, the companies shared pricing information so that the agreed loser could submit a higher bid than the intended winner. The customer then compared offers whose relationship had already been settled between the bidders.

The filing followed the arrangement through to the money: the companies allegedly performed paving work and accepted payment under contracts obtained through that process. The paper competition led to real jobs and real payments.

For an estimator or bid coordinator, that sequence puts the pricing discussion at the center of the story. The question is how the company arrived at the offer it sent: who wanted the contract, what pricing information came from the rival and how that information shaped the submitted bid. A person who saw those decisions can explain what the customer’s bid comparison concealed.

Al’s Asphalt and the Rival Bidders

Al’s Asphalt’s relationship with Pontiac-based Asphalt Specialists ran from March 2013 through November 2018, according to the Justice Department’s account of the criminal proceedings. Asphalt Specialists also pleaded guilty. The department described the companies coordinating bid prices so that the agreed loser submitted an intentionally noncompetitive bid, giving customers a false impression of competition.

The criminal information against Al’s Asphalt also charged a separate agreement with F. Allied Construction Company, based in Clarkston, Michigan. The filing alleged that arrangement ran from at least June 2013 through at least June 2019 and described the same cover-bid pattern. The Justice Department’s announcement confirms that Allied also pleaded guilty.

Asphalt Specialists had its own separate conspiracy with Allied, which the Justice Department dated from July 2017 through May 2021.

How Is Bid Rigging Detected?

For Al’s Asphalt, the bid worksheet and the instruction to lose matter together, as the road-cost example illustrates.

That finding gives a paving insider a useful way to understand the Al’s Asphalt allegations. The alleged losing price had to sit above the chosen winner’s price. An employee familiar with the estimate may know when a number was set to protect another company’s offer.

Would This Have Qualified Under Today’s Reporting Routes?

Whether the bids you know can support a reward case is a question our whistleblower experts work through with you. We look at the particular bids, customers and payments behind them.

The Antitrust Division and Postal Service established a whistleblower rewards program in their May 2025 agreement. We assess how that program fits the bidding information you hold.

The Hanjin fuel settlement supplies a separate government-claims example; Al’s Asphalt’s corporate fine remains its own outcome.

The comparison shows why we examine who bought the work, what the bidders represented and what the government paid. A whistleblower case under the False Claims Act can pay 15% to 30% of what the government recovers.

If your own role in preparing or submitting bids is part of the story, we address it with you and antitrust whistleblower lawyers as part of the case review.

What Is the Role of Whistleblowers in Bid Rigging Cases?

A whistleblower can connect the agreement between competitors to the bid the customer actually received.

We work with insiders to connect their account of those decisions to the bid files and the contracts and payments that followed.

A customer may hold the offers that appeared to compete for the same paving job.

You Know Why That Bid Was Higher

If an Al’s Asphalt quote was prepared to lose, tell our whistleblower experts which instruction set the price and what the bidder expected afterward.