US firm said railway should not have given job to Balfour team because of flawed procurement process

HS2 has won a court case against Bechtel after the US firm said it should have been awarded the job to build the 拢1bn Old Oak Common station instead of a Balfour Beatty team.

Bechtel said its chance of winning the job was scuppered because of blunders the client made in its procurement process.

HS2 - Old Oak Common (3)

Main construction work on the station is due to start shortly

The west London job was awarded to a team of Balfour Beatty, Vinci and Systra, known as BBVS, two years ago.

But Bechtel challenged the decision and said it had cost it 拢100m of lost profit and revenue on top of the 拢3.5m it shelled out making its bid.

The US firm, which pulled out of bidding for the station scheme at Euston, eventually won by a Mace/Dragados team, in order to focus its efforts on Old Oak Common, claimed HS2 鈥渙ught to have and would have awarded鈥 it the job had the client 鈥渃onducted the evaluation of tenders for the Lot 2 contract [Old Oak Common station] properly鈥.

In a claim lodged at the Technology and Construction Court a month after the award, it said the BBVS tender was 鈥渁bnormally low鈥 and would have 鈥渘eeded to increase the size of the management team proposed in its bid (and, therefore, its bid price) in order to deliver the Lot 2 contract 鈥榠n a manner that will be safe and aligned to HS2鈥檚 wellbeing requirements鈥.鈥

But in a 152 page decision, judge Mr Justice Fraser dismissed the claims and said BBVS had been shown to have won the bid assessment and that its tender was well within the range to be expected. He said the award had shown 鈥減rocurement competition working fairly鈥.

An HS2 spokesperson said: 鈥淲e are pleased the judge has concluded that there was no error by HS2 in the scoring of Bechtel鈥檚 tender nor the scoring of the winning consortium鈥檚 [BBVS] tender and that the winning tender was not 鈥榓bnormally low鈥 as had been alleged.鈥

Main construction work on the station is now expected to start shortly.