The latest bans bring the total number of director disqualifications to six following a Competition and Markets Authority investigation which led to five firms being fined £7m in March.

The latest trio were all directors of companies within the Fourfront Group at the time the cover bidding activity took place.

Clive Lucking, founder and CEO of the Fourfront Group, has been disqualified for 4 years and 9 months. Aki Stamatis, Chair of the Fourfront Group, has been disqualified for 2 years and 9 months and Sion Davies, Managing Director at Area Sq. Ltd, has been disqualified for 1 year and 6 months.

Lucking contributed to 10 breaches affecting contracts with a total value of over £11.9m.

Stamatis contributed to one of these breaches and took no steps to avoid the other nine breaches even though he had reason to suspect or should have known about them.

Davies contributed to the illegal conduct by failing to prevent three breaches affecting contracts with a total value of £8.6m.

Cover bidding involves companies in a competitive tender agreeing with each other that one or more of them will place a bid that is deliberately intended to lose the contract, thereby reducing the intensity of competition.

The five companies involved were: Fourfront, JLL, Loop, Coriolis, ThirdWay and Oakley.