According to a story in the Ottawa Citizen, an unsuccessful bidder was just awarded $30 million in lost profit damages arising out of an unfair evaluation process in relation to a relocation services tender call:
The federal government has been ordered to pay nearly $30 million in lost profits to the losing bidder of a controversial mega-million-dollar relocation deal that an Ontario Superior Court judge found was “intentionally” steered by bureaucrats to a preferred supplier.
In his ruling, Justice Peter Annis concluded Envoy Relocation Services should have won the five-year deal in 2004 that was awarded to Royal LePage Relocation Services (RLRS) to help move the 18,000 military, RCMP and bureaucrats who are uprooted each year to take new postings in Canada and abroad.
The deal, the biggest of its kind in North America, was won by RLRS successively in 1999, 2002, 2004 and 2009.
“In summary, it was found the Crown had acted intentionally to unfairly favour RLRS by repeating the 2002 property management services provisions in the 2004 RFP and by modifying the selection formula to play to RLRS strengths, Annis wrote in his decision released late Saturday.
“These findings had consequences in determining that the RLRS bid was non-complaint and in declaring a breach of the Crown’s implied contractual duty of fair and equal treatment of tendering parties.”
As this decision illustrates, unfair evaluations can have a significant adverse impact on a procurement process and can result in costly legal sanctions against the body breaching the tendering rules.
K. May, “Federal government ordered to pay nearly $30 million to losing bidder in relocation deal,” Ottawa Citizen, April 8, 2013.
