Another company where executives and shareholders have been raking it in from public projects, gets government contracts despite being in known financial difficulty, then comes cap in hand wanting a taxpayer bailout when times get difficult.

(Liquidation confirmed live as I type. Wages and pensions will still be paid).

Hopefully, given the number of government contracts Carillion are working on, this will open the door for dozens of smaller companies around the country to be awarded contracts to take over, who have been excluded by the growing Whitehall policy to give all contracts to one or two firms despite known poor performance.

I wrote about this on another group about why they were awarded all these contracts in the first place when the company can't have been strong enough to support them.

If a small firm tenders the financials are checked out thoroughly but seems for 'big' firms they become complacent.

The old adage of "you won't get fired if you buy IBM".

A culture and process change required in government. Procurement from government is demonstrably unfit for purpose and unfair - with negative impact on the economy (although big wins for the Government's friends in boardrooms).

Just had a look at their accounts, they paid out £788m in dividends to shareholders last accounting year. They should have told shareholders they couldn't pay it to ensure the ongoing security of the company.

KPMG need to answer a few difficult questions too and I wonder if these large auditors need bringing to book too. They should have questioned the company's ability to continue trading.

Unfortunately, shareholder dividends being based on actual performance is not how British business wants to operate. In a free market yes, in a self-serving rigged market like Britain, no.

Think about it - if the CEO had said to shareholders that their dividends would be paused, he couldn't have justified his huge millions of pounds salary scheme and shareholders may have voted against the remuneration plan.

Such a shame to see what was once a great business and free market nation being turned into an oligarchy.

Re: KPMG...was it not them who oversaw Tesco false accounting? When they get massive fees from Carillon, why would they rock the boat as the client would switch to another big four firm who were happy to ignore/cover up issues.

Don't forget that whilst racking up a £600m pension deficit the boss was donating money to the Conservatives.... would be an anti-bribery and corruption compliance violation if that information was captured say from Chinese suppliers to Western brands if assessed by a western third party.

Changing terms and conditions for sub-contractors mid project. Not providing heating or hot water for staff working on army base construction. These are violations all straight out of basic working practice auditing handbook. In a previous job I developed Sustainability and CSR tools for telco brands like BT and Huawei to roll out to their suppliers in China. If the type of information we are hearing about Carillion was being done by these suppliers they'd be red-flagged and possibly dropped by the telcos.

What an absolute corrupt oligopoly our economy has become.

Still, if the result is the government open up the market to private sector competition, rather than rigging the market, as a result of this shambles then a silver lining at least.