The Court of Appeal has turned down an appeal filed by a contractor who requested compensation after a contract for the repair of road water pipes was not awarded to him.

Contractor Grezzju Ellul, in a law suit against the Water Services Corporation and the Contracts Department, had submitted that the WSC and the department in their call for tenders had laid down that the contract was divided in five phases. Inspections were to be made after each phase and the contract would be annulled if more than 10 per cent of the work was unsatisfactory.

The contract was awarded to Charles Dimech, who submitted the best bid.

However, after the first phase it was found that more than 10 per cent of the work was unsatisfactory, the problem being the quality of the road reinstatement. As a result, the WSC decided not to award the second phase of the contract to Charles Dimech and recommended that it should be given to Mr Ellul, who had submitted the second best bid.

The Contracts Committee, in December 2001, did not take up this recommendation as it felt that the repair work to the pipes was more important than the reinstatement of the roads.

Mr Ellul argued that this breached the tender conditions.

The first court in October 2006 annulled the decision taken by the Contracts Committee in December 2001, declaring that the decision to allow Mr Dimech to continue working as null. However, by that time, Mr Dimech had completed the works and it was not possible for the committee to reallocate the works to another contractor , as the judgement had ordered.

Mr Ellul instituted new proceedings against the Contracts Department and called on the court to declare that the department had failed to adhere to the judgement and to pay him damages of €201,000.

The appeals court noted that Mr Ellul was arguing that he should have been granted all the subsequent phases of the contract and not just the next one. However, the court said, he had not taken into consideration that he too would have been subject to inspections after each phase. Furthermore, he could not expect to be paid for works which were not done.

The court ruled that, as a result, Mr Ellul did not suffer any financial losses and it turned down his request for compensation.