A judge has cleared the way for the tendering process for new military helicopters to go ahead.

Mr Justice Joseph Zammit Mc­Keon, sitting in the First Hall of the Civil Court, ruled that French company Eurocopter did not resort to the correct legal remedies and should have instead turned to the Court of Appeal.

The issue revolves around a call for tenders, issued by the Armed Forces of Malta, to buy a helicopter, with an option for another two, to replace its ageing Alouettes, donated by Libya in the mid-1980s.

The €58 million contract attracted two bidders: Augusta­Westland and Eurocopter.

Eurocopter, however, complained that the deal was practically awarded to AugustaWestland when it was unfairly excluded.

The French company was informed in December that their offer had been discarded because a CD containing its financial offer had been included with the technical offer.

Eurocopter appealed to the Contracts Department revision board, asking it to revoke the decision that their offer was “administratively non compliant”. This was turned down.

The company then wrote to the Public Contracts Review Board about the matter and this, too, was rejected, the board recommend ding that the adjudication process continued.

Mr Justice Zammit McKeon noted that Eurocopter claimed the Contracts Department changed “essential and fundamental specifications” about the maximum take-off weight of the helicopter while the tendering process was still open. This, however, had been denied by the department, which insisted that “no changes were made to the text of the tender document except for a slight change in the layout of the cover page”.

The judge said that a warrant for prohibitory injunction could not be issued if there were other available avenues.

“The remit of this court is not to decide about their requests but is limited to establish whether their arguments satisfy the legal requirements for a warrant of prohibitory injunction”, which should be used in “exceptional” and “extraordinary” cases.

The company did not take its complaint to the Appeals Court, as it could have done.

“That was the remedy that it could and should have turned to. Instead of doing that, the company used a procedure that is an exception and extraordinary”.

The request was filed by lawyer Kenneth Grima, on behalf of the French company, against the Director General of Contracts.