Conspiracies to prevent competitive bidding or competitive offering on public contracts

§ 103-e. Conspiracies to prevent competitive bidding or competitive offering on public contracts. 1. A person or corporation who shall wilfully, knowingly and with intent to defraud, make or enter into, or attempt to make or enter into, with any other person or corporation, a contract, agreement, arrangement or combination to submit a fraudulent or collusive bid or offer, or to refrain from submitting a bona fide competitive bid or competitive offer, to any board, officer, agency, department, commission or other agency of the state or of a public corporation on a contract for public work or purchase which has been advertised for bidding or offering, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction thereof shall, if a natural person, be punished by a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars or by imprisonment for not longer than one year, or by both such fine and imprisonment, and if a corporation by a fine not exceeding twenty thousand dollars. An indictment or information based upon a violation of any provision of this section must be found within three years after its commission. 2. For the purpose of this section a public corporation shall mean a county, city, town, village, school district, a territorial division of the state established by law and possessing the power to contract indebtedness and levy taxes or benefit assessments upon real estate or to require the levy of such taxes or assessments, whether or not such territorial division is expressly declared to be a body corporate and politic by the statute creating or authorizing the creation of such territorial division, and a corporation organized to construct or operate a public improvement wholly or partly within the state, the profits from which inure to the benefit of this or other states or to the people thereof.