Published in the National Business Review of 7 December 2007

An attempt to extract a ten percent brokerage fee from businesses bidding for market research work through the government's GETS system has raised the ire of both officials and suppliers.

The Ministry of Economic Development has told the firm, The Research Broker, to cease immediately making statements that the Ministry of Economic Development or GETS has approved or endorsed their tender process.

Two contracts involving The Research Broker were withdrawn from the GETS system this week.

A complaint about the firm has been lodged with the Market Research Society alleging a breach of its code of ethics.

One of the two withdrawn tenders related to a survey of voters and non voters commissioned by the Chief Electoral Office. The other tender was from the Office of the Auditor General and sought expressions of interest in conducting the office's annual client survey.

In both cases the tender documents state that The Research Broker will evaluate the tenders.

The documents direct enquiries to that firm and say that "the successful provider will need to have signed the research broker Service Agreement."

The service agreement provides for ten per cent commission and is paid by the successful tenderer not by the government agency. A footnote on the company's website says "Some companies add an additional charge for you to use our service and some pay our fee from their profit. We encourage companies to do the latter."

Under the rules of GETS (Government Electronic Tendering System) departments and agencies are required to advertise virtually all contracts for goods and services and to hold an open competitive tendering system. The involvement of a broker is a new development.

On its website the company claims to be "only Market Research Broker in the world, offering free, independent advice to people needing to conduct market research."

The company claims it has completed over a hundred market research projects in the last four years, but the GETS venture was a new one, and it was "keen to get it right".

Principal Barry Van Beuten said that there had been "some misinterpretation" of what could be said, and that had come from "both themselves and the MED."

Phil Weir, the head of the Procurement Development Group at the Ministry of Economic Development said "Research Broker has approached us for advice about the services they offer." He said that "We are still in the process of advising them on some of these points."