Downer EDI awarded millions of dollars of transport works contracts to a company without a website or employees, enabling a former manager to pocket hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits, and others to take cash kickbacks, according to submissions made at the first day of hearings by NSW’s Independent Commission Against Corruption.

ICAC, which held its first day of hearings in an investigation known as Operation Hector on Monday, is examining two multi-million dollar programs run by Transport for NSW, which was using Downer as its principal contractor from 2016.