A joint venture between Balfour Beatty, Vinci Construction and Systra (BBVS) was awarded the contract for the 14 platform station in September 2019 after scoring higher than Bechtel in HS2’s procurement exercise.

This prompted the losing bidder to launch a legal challenge, alleging that aspects of the bids had been evaluated incorrectly and that consequently it should have scored higher and won the contract. Bechtel also alleged that the BBVS bid represented an ‘abnormally low’ tender. It issued a claim for estimated losses in excess of £100M.

In a trial heard before Mr Justice Fraser in the Technology & Construction Court, High Speed 2 denied the allegations and maintained that the scoring exercise had been carried out correctly.

It also emerged that Bechtel included a ‘substantial qualification’ in its tendered submission that was not considered acceptable by the client. As a result HS2 said the firm would have been disqualified from the procurement process even if it was the highest scoring bidder.

The judge found in favour of High Speed 2. “In reality, this case could have been decided merely on the disqualification point alone,” he said, but noted that even without this “BBVS would still have been the winning bidder, and Bechtel’s claims in these proceedings all fail”.

He said while Bechtel’s performance on the technical side of the bid was better than that of BBVS, the latter scored better on price making it the winner overall. “There is no question of the BBVS tender being an abnormally low tender,” he said.

“This shows, in my judgment, a procurement competition working fairly and as it is designed and intended to operate, and in the result giving HS2 the most economically advantageous tender. In this case that tender was submitted by BBVS, and these proceedings do not change the outcome of that competition. There were no errors in the evaluation of the BBVS or Bechtel tenders,” he concluded, “nor were there any other breaches of obligation on the part of HS2”.

A High Speed 2 spokesman welcomed the decision and said: “With this judgement we can now move forward and we are excited to formally start construction of London’s ‘super-hub’ station at Old Oak Common imminently.”

A spokesman for Bechtel said: “We brought this case because we believed the ‘practical achievability’ of a bid was central to its evaluation. We are disappointed the judgement has come to a different conclusion.

“We will continue to press for fundamental reform to how major projects are procured. HS2 is an important multi billion pound programme for the UK and we remain focused on our role as development partner on Phase 2B.”

(Photograph: High Speed 2 Ltd)