Bidders temporarily halt adjudication of cleaning contract for new hospital

A court yesterday provisionally halted the adjudication process for cleaning services tender at the new hospital following an application filed by a number of bidders.

Madam Justice Abigail Lofaro, sitting in the First Hall of the Civil Court, delivered her decree following an application for a warrant of prohibitory injunction filed by Bad Boy Cleaning Services Ltd, Euro Hygene International Ltd, MCCS Co. Ltd and Coopservice S Coop SA, which formed the consortium Servizi Malta.

The application was filed against the Director of Contracts.

The consortium asked the court to stop the director from continuing with the adjudication process for the award of the contract for the cleaning services at Mater Dei Hospital.

According to the companies in question, they had been excluded from the tender process because one of the four bid bonds they had submitted in terms of the tender lacked, by a few days, a sufficiently long validity period. They deemed such exclusion unfounded and illegal.

According to the companies, the discrepancy caused by the few days difference in one of the bid bonds was less than 0.5 per cent and could not affect the validity of the bid bond.

In any event, it was clear that the new hospital was going to be operational within less than a year.

The companies added that the Director of Contracts had altered the wording of the clause that described the validity of the bid bond.

This meant that the companies' request for a revision by the Board of Appeal was justified. The companies submitted that the Board of Appeal had misinterpreted their submissions on the subject of transparency.

In conclusion, the companies said they would suffer irremediable damage if their application was dismissed and they requested the court to prohibit the director from proceeding with the adjudication process.

The court provisionally upheld the request and authorised the director to file a reply within 10 days. The court appointed the case for hearing on August 3.

Lawyer Andrew Borg Cardona acted for the companies.