Construction and Building Materials

Antitrust and Competition Counsel for the Construction Industry and the Building-Materials Supply Chain

The bid, the spec, the supply contract, the trade-association meeting: in construction, antitrust risk is built into the way the industry does business. So is the power to fight back when a cartel or a dominant supplier targets your company.

Bona Law represents companies across the construction and building-materials supply chain — general contractors and subcontractors, homebuilders, building-products and construction-materials manufacturers, ready-mix, aggregates, paving companies, building-products distributors and dealers, and the large purchasers of construction inputs on the other side of those markets. We design antitrust compliance programs calibrated to public-bid and trade-association risk, defend companies and executives in grand-jury investigations and criminal antitrust matters, defend antitrust class actions, prosecute antitrust claims for businesses harmed by cartels and dominant suppliers, and handle merger review for construction-industry transactions.

Construction and building materials generate more criminal antitrust enforcement than almost any other sector of the American economy. The Department of Justice’s Procurement Collusion Strike Force — formed in 2019 to police bid rigging on government contracts — has made construction, paving, and infrastructure work its most active target, reportedly opening roughly one hundred new investigations in fiscal year 2025 alone. In 2025 the Antitrust Division began offering whistleblowers a share of criminal fines, and it announced the program’s first $1 million award in a bid-rigging matter in January 2026. Federal infrastructure dollars, state attorneys general partnering with federal prosecutors, and tariff-driven price increases that regulators have warned are “not a green light for price fixing” complete the picture: every company that bids, builds, manufactures, or distributes in this industry now operates under an antitrust microscope.

Featured Analysis

Homebuilders in the Crosshairs: Preparing for Possible DOJ Antitrust Scrutiny — Ruth Glaeser’s analysis of reported DOJ interest in information sharing among major homebuilders, and what builders of every size should do about trade-association and benchmarking risk before an investigation arrives.

Companion pieces: Bid Rigging in the Construction Industry: The Caltrans and Michigan Asphalt Paving Cases (Luis Blanquez) and Marketplace Bullying and Bona Law’s Antitrust Lawsuit in the Cement and Ready Mix Concrete Markets (Jarod Bona).

Representative Experience

Chase Manufacturing, Inc. (d/b/a Thermal Pipe Shields) v. Johns Manville Corp. (D. Colo.; Tenth Circuit) — Section 2 monopolization and Lanham Act false-advertising claims against a manufacturer that supplied nearly 100% of the calcium-silicate (“calsil”) mechanical-insulation market and threatened to cut off customers who bought from a new entrant. Bona Law won a published Tenth Circuit reversal reinstating the antitrust claims, 84 F.4th 1157 (10th Cir. 2023) — with the U.S. Department of Justice participating as amicus — and the client ultimately prevailed at trial.
Ready-Mix Concrete and Cement Price-Fixing and Group Boycott (N.D. Ga.) — represented plaintiff ready-mix concrete producers in a federal antitrust action against the alleged ringleader of related cement and ready-mix cartels in the southeastern United States, where the colluding firms’ combined share exceeded 80%. The DOJ separately entered a deferred-prosecution agreement under which the lead defendant admitted to a price-fixing and bid-rigging conspiracy and paid a $20 million criminal fine.
Executive defense in a related matter — defended a ready-mix company executive against a former employer’s state-law claims arising from the same industry dispute.
Thomason v. State of Alabama Home Builders Licensure Board (M.D. Ala.) — Sherman Act Section 1 claims on behalf of a homebuilder repeatedly denied an unlimited residential license by a licensure board dominated by active-market-participant builders — part of the firm’s leading practice on antitrust challenges to anticompetitive government and licensing-board conduct.
DOJ criminal bid-rigging investigation — municipal water and sewer systems — Defended a construction-materials sales representative in a U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division criminal bid-rigging investigation relating to the procurement of municipal water and sewer system projects.
Criminal bid-rigging defense — Ninth Circuit appeal of a bid-rigging conviction arising from the DOJ’s real-estate foreclosure-auction investigation (United States v. Guillory), and defense of an individual charged with rigging bids in federal government auctions in the District of Minnesota.
Antitrust compliance programs for construction and building-materials companies, including asphalt-paving companies and a major building-products manufacturer.
Merger clearance and antitrust counsel for construction-industry transactions, including Hart-Scott-Rodino strategy and filings.
Trade-association and information-exchange counseling for companies and industry organizations in the construction and design professions.

Our Construction and Building Materials Antitrust Team

Jarod M. Bona (Founder, CEO, and Partner, San Diego) — represented the plaintiffs in the firm’s cement and ready-mix cartel litigation and in the calsil monopolization case; counsels companies on trade-association, standard-setting, and distribution issues across industrial markets.
Aaron Gott (Partner and COO, Minneapolis) — served as lead counsel in the firm’s cement and ready-mix antitrust litigation; Chair of the Minnesota State Bar Association Antitrust Law Section Council, 2026–27.
Luke Hasskamp (Partner, San Diego) — argued and won Chase Manufacturing v. Johns Manville in the Tenth Circuit and litigated the homebuilder licensure-board matter.
Jim Lerner (Partner and Director of Litigation, New York) — decades of cartel and multidistrict-litigation defense; industry experience includes building and construction materials, and merger work in steel and construction materials.
Jon Cieslak (Partner, San Diego) — defends companies and executives in DOJ criminal price-fixing and bid-rigging investigations and government-procurement litigation.
Joseph Trujillo (Partner, San Diego) — litigates complex competition disputes at every phase of trial-court practice, from early injunctive relief through trial, with industry experience that includes manufacturing and energy; former law clerk to the Hon. Phyllis J. Hamilton (N.D. Cal.) and Executive Committee member of the Bar Association of San Francisco’s Antitrust and Business Regulation Section.

Recent Developments

Construction antitrust is moving quickly in 2026:

The Procurement Collusion Strike Force reportedly opened roughly 100 new investigations in FY2025 — its busiest year — with construction and paving its most-targeted industries, and secured fresh bid-rigging guilty pleas on military-procurement contracts in December 2025 and February 2026. The Antitrust Division has said it is “laser focused on individual accountability, including seeking significant prison sentences.”
The DOJ’s Antitrust Whistleblower Rewards Program (launched July 2025) paid its first $1 million award in January 2026 — in a bid-rigging matter. Employees and subcontractors now have a direct financial incentive to report collusion.
The PVC pipe price-fixing litigation — alleging coordination through an industry price-reporting service — has produced nine-figure reported settlements, with a parallel DOJ criminal investigation reported. Price-reporting and benchmarking practices across building materials are under scrutiny, and a companion case over concrete and cement additives continues after repleading.
Tariffs on steel, aluminum, and lumber are driving industry-wide price increases — and regulators have warned that tariffs are “not a green light for price fixing.” How companies communicate cost-driven price increases has become an antitrust compliance question.
Reported DOJ interest in homebuilder information sharing has put trade-association benchmarking on every builder’s risk agenda.
A historic consolidation wave — in cement and aggregates, roofing distribution, and building products — is concentrating supply chains, generating merger-review work and the supplier-power disputes that follow.

Where Antitrust Risk Arises in Construction and Building Materials

Bid rigging and procurement collusion — bid rotation, complementary bidding, bid suppression, and subcontracting kickbacks on public and private work; per se criminal violations prosecuted by the Procurement Collusion Strike Force and state attorneys general.
Price fixing and market allocation in regional materials markets — ready-mix, aggregates, asphalt, and other locally supplied inputs are classic cartel terrain, where a handful of plants and repeated bidding make collusion tempting and detection likely.
Information exchange, benchmarking, and price-reporting services — trade-association statistics programs, industry price reports, and cost surveys can become the hub of a conspiracy claim even without direct competitor contact.
Monopolization and refusals to deal by dominant suppliers — exclusive dealing, tying, threats to cut off customers who buy from rivals, and disparagement of new entrants in concentrated building-products markets.
Distribution, dealer termination, and price discrimination — terminated distributors, margin squeezes, and Robinson-Patman exposure as building-products channels consolidate.
Tariff-era pricing communications — announcing cost-driven price increases without signaling or inviting coordination.
Labor markets — no-poach and wage-fixing exposure among contractors competing for skilled trades.
Merger review — Hart-Scott-Rodino strategy for construction-industry deals in a consolidating sector, including new state premerger-notification regimes.
Government-created barriers — licensing boards, permitting regimes, and municipal favoritism that exclude competitors, where the firm maintains one of the nation’s leading practices on the antitrust state-action immunity doctrine.

How We Help Construction and Building Materials Clients

Antitrust compliance programs and audits built for public-bid discipline, estimating and bid-file hygiene, trade-association participation, and whistleblower-era internal reporting.
Grand-jury and government-investigation defense — for companies and individual executives, including leniency-program counseling, before the DOJ Antitrust Division, the Procurement Collusion Strike Force, the FTC, and state attorneys general.
Antitrust class-action and MDL defense for manufacturers and suppliers named in price-fixing litigation.
Affirmative antitrust litigation for businesses harmed by cartels and dominant suppliers — from regional materials cartels to a near-100% monopolist taken through a published Tenth Circuit victory.
Opt-out and affirmative-recovery counseling for large purchasers of building materials evaluating their claims in industry price-fixing cases.
Distribution and dealer-termination counseling and litigation, including Robinson-Patman analysis.
Merger review and Hart-Scott-Rodino counseling for construction and building-products transactions.
Trade-association counseling — governance, information-exchange protocols, benchmarking programs, and meeting protocols.
Appellate litigation — the firm’s antitrust appellate practice includes a published Tenth Circuit monopolization reversal in a building-materials market.

Recent Analysis from Bona Law

More at The Antitrust Attorney Blog.

Why Bona Law for Construction and Building Materials Antitrust

We have litigated both sides. We litigated a federal antitrust case against a regional cement and ready-mix cartel — conduct the lead defendant later admitted in a DOJ deferred prosecution agreement; we took a building-products monopolization case through a published Tenth Circuit reversal to a merits victory; and we defend companies and executives in criminal bid-rigging and price-fixing investigations. Few firms of any size can show that range in this industry.
A boutique with a strong bench. Former BigLaw partner and in-house antitrust leadership from General Motors and AT&T, a former European Commission Merger Task Force lawyer, and ABA Antitrust Law Section leadership — at boutique economics that fit regional contractors and mid-market manufacturers.
Compliance grounded in real cases. Our compliance programs for construction and building-materials companies are informed by having investigated, prosecuted, and defended the exact conduct the programs are designed to prevent.
Appellate strength. A published circuit-court monopolization reversal — with the DOJ as amicus — in a building-materials market, plus one of the nation’s leading practices on antitrust challenges to government-created barriers.
Recognition. Bona Law is recognized in the Chambers Spotlight 2026 California guide for Antitrust.

Contact Us

Bona Law represents contractors, homebuilders, manufacturers, distributors, and purchasers across the construction and building-materials industry on antitrust compliance, investigations, litigation, class-action defense, and merger review.