Is a company's payment of sums to other companies to withdraw from a tender, so that the first company acquires the tender at the lowest prices and adds to it what it paid plus its profit, considered bribery and unlawful?

This transaction refers to the general Sharia rules of "no harm and no causing harm," and it involves potential and significant harm to the project owners. The person who desires to take sole ownership of the project might be less competent, and the amounts paid for withdrawal are considered an unlawful consumption of the project owners' money, due to Allah’s saying: "And do not consume your properties among yourselves by unlawful means."

The Malikis permitted this in auctions (Al-Muzayada), and inverse auctions (Al-Munaqasa) can be analogized to them due to their shared meaning. They stipulated that this should not be done with everyone, lest he monopolize the bidding and harm the seller. The author believes there is no objection to acting according to the Maliki school of thought with the mentioned controls, because it is compensation for abandoning this, although the most scrupulous and cautious approach is to avoid all of that.