The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has accused eight recruitment agencies of price-fixing and collectively boycotting an intermediary company when supplying staff to the construction industry.

The watchdog alleges that the groups agreed to fix the prices that they charged construction companies for supplying staff and collectively refused to deal with an unnamed intermediary from late 2004 to early 2006, with the exact duration of each agency's involvement varying.

The agencies accused include a unit of Hays, one of Britain's largest staffing groups; Hill McGlynn and Beresford Blake Thomas, which are owned by Randstad, the Dutch recruitment giant; and CDI AndersElite, the British unit of the NYSE-listed CDI Corporation.

Eden Brown, a business controlled by James Caan, of Dragons' Den fame, has also been singled out, although Mr Caan's Hamilton Bradshaw private equity group did not acquire the company until June 2007.

The other agencies involved are A Warwick Associates, Fusion People and Henry Recruitment.

The OFT started to investigate possible breaches of competition law by a number of recruitment groups in the construction sector in 2006, although it published its statement of objections and named the companies and their alleged wrong-doings only yesterday. The groups have about three months to respond.

Hays said that it was co-operating fully with the OFT and that, after an internal investigation, it was confident that the matter being investigated was isolated. Randstad said that it would co-operate and it did not expect any material impact.

Eden Brown said that the allegation indicated the occurrence of a purely technical breach of the relevant law, that customers did not suffer and that the company did not benefit from the alleged actions.

The other companies mentioned declined to comment.

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