Department For Transport sued for *that* ferry contract

Eurotunnel is suing the Department for Transport due to the ferry contract(s) awarded back in December without proper tendering procedures. This turn of affairs is not really surprising and a logical consequence of the poor handling of those contracts.

The merits  of the actual complaint, they appear obvious. In my opinion, the use of the negotiated procedure without prior publication based on the grounds for extreme urgency was not legal since said urgency arose from a lack of timely action by the Government. In other words, incompetence by the contracting authority is never a ground to use a non-transparent procedure. It has been public since March 2017 that the departure date from the Union is scheduled for 29 March 2019, therefore the lack of preparation for the consequences of the default scenario for such departure (no-deal Brexit) runs from that moment as well and is not unforeseen (or unforeseeable). This is pretty much well established at EU level and probably one of the reasons why the rules about contract notice transparency are as draconian as they are.

As Albert and myself said back in 2016 about Regulation 32(2), the negotiated procedure without prior notice is exceptional in nature and as such its grounds need to be interpreted strictly as not to create competitive distortions. And the latter seems to be exactly what happened in this instance.

PS: As for piling on Chris Grayling for spending £800k on consultants to prepare the contracts that is probably uncalled for based on the total amount being procured and that time was of the essence (which is different than saying the grounds for the negotiated procedure were met). And let’s not forget one of them actually flagged up Seaborne Freight lack of trading history as a risk factor. That no one heeded such advice, on the other hand, is more than fair game.