New developments in Athens Metro Line 4 tender

Yesterday’s leak regarding the decision of the Court of Audit on Aktio-Amvrakia Motorway “sweep” contract has triggered a discussion about the consequences it could bring on other projects as well among which, Athens Metro Line 4 of the Athens Metro. According to weel informed sources, especially after the the withdrawal of TERNA from the tendering procedure, the project itself could get trapped in a potentially dangerous situation.

Of course, companies’ moves incompetitions of that scale are and should be well thought and worked out. In the case of Aktio-Amvrakia Motorway, the decision was based on the reasoning that J/V AKTOR-TERNA responded inaccurately to the question of whether it was involved in cases concerning unfair competition.

Nowadays with the contest being officially in Stage B’, after the submission of 2 bids from two different consortia led by AKTOR and AVAX respectively, sources close to the tender consider 2 possible scenarios:

The first one would be for the competition to be canceled due to appeals filed (Mytilineos) and because of the legal precedent finally resulting to its relaunch. In this case, the “winner “would be TERNA that finally decided not to participate in Stage B’. The second scenario would be for the tender to proceed, with necessary adjustments that mainly have to do with measures and evidence proving the companies’ compliance to fair competition.

During this process, according to information, Attiko Metro should initially, as the contracting authority, find out whether there is a reason for exclusion of a participant. If the justifications of the participants are accepted, then a committee consisting of representatives by the Ministries of a. Infrastructure & Transport, b. Justice and c. Economy & Development will be convening in order to decide about the participating schemes. In that case, the “winners” would be consortia that have decided to remain in the tender and submit their offers.

Nikos Karagiannis-ypodomes.com