Following the receipt of an invitation from Mong Cha Cha Limited (`MCCL') to submit quotations for a project Mr Ang, Ms Ball and Mrs Liu exchanged WhatsApp messages which in essence discussed how they should bid for the project being tendered by MCCL. As the project is split into three distinct components Mr Ang, Ms Ball and Mrs Liu agreed that they should work together to ensure that each will get a portion of the contract which they have particular expertise and experience in.

They agreed to exchange information about their respective bids and agreed to submit bids for all three components of the project. They also agreed that each of them would submit the lowest bid for the component for which they had comparative advantage since this would ensure the best service and quality for MCCL. Each of them eventually won the tender for the component of the project that they had particular expertise in. Despite the higher quality the total cost to MCCL was only three percent above that submitted by the other applicants.

See if what area Mr Ang, Ms Ball and Mrs Liu may violate the competition ordinance?