A court this morning issued a provisional warrant stopping the Customs Department from awarding a contract for the sale of scrap metal, worth some €400,000, after a dealer claimed that brass listed in the tender document did not correspond with the type of brass for sale.
DDE Attard Limited filed an application in the First Hall of the Civil Court against the Customs Department. The scrap metal dealer asked the court to stop the department from processing and adjudicating a tender to the tale quale sale of red brass.
The dealer said that, in the tender document, the department said that interested bidders could go and see the brass for sale on October 27 and 29. But when a representative of the dealer called, he was not allowed to see the red brass for sale and, instead, was given a small sample.
But the sample turned out to be yellow brass that was worth less than red brass.
Mr Justice Joseph Zammit McKeon temporally upheld the request and put off the matter to November 11.