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ARTICLE · 24 NOVEMBER 2008

£800m Northern Ireland Framework Hangs In The Balance

MacRoberts
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The long established principle that public authorities must ensure transparency when awarding a public contract including by stating the evaluation criteria to bidders before their bids are prepared, has been hammered home recently by the High Court of Northern Ireland.

United KingdomAntitrust/Competition Law
Duncan Osler
Duncan Osler
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The long established principle that public authorities must ensure transparency when awarding a public contract including by stating the evaluation criteria to bidders before their bids are prepared, has been hammered home recently by the High Court of Northern Ireland. In McLaughlin & Harvey v Department of Finance and Personnel No. 2 the defendant (DFP) was found to have evaluated bids on the basis of 39 criteria, sub-criteria and weightings that had not been fully disclosed.

The Facts

A tendering procedure was carried out by the Central Purchasing Directorate (on behalf of DFP) in order to select five contractors to a Framework Agreement for construction contracts with an estimated value of between £500 to £800 million. McLaughlin & Harvey (McLaughlin) were unsuccessful and a debriefing revealed that their bid (together with the other bids) had been evaluated against a methodology that had not been disclosed in advance of bid submission. So, McLaughlin argued

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