An agreement between two or more people to commit an act designed to deceive or gain an unfair advantage is called what?

• A. Collusion
• B. Contract
• C. Principal
• D. Post-Award/Administration phase

Answer: (A)

Collusion is the act of two or more people secretly planning and working together to deceive or gain an unfair advantage. This kind of collaboration is dangerous because it can bypass normal controls and create results that appear legitimate while concealing fraudulent intent. In practice, you might see collusion in procurement, bidding, invoicing, or financial reporting, where participants coordinate to fix prices, award work to friends, or create fake vendors, making fraud harder to detect.

A contract is simply a binding agreement between parties and doesn’t imply deceit or unfair advantage. A principal refers to someone who authorizes another to act on their behalf, not to a fraudulent act. The post-award/administration phase describes a stage in a process, not the act of cheating together.