In a release, the association of Turkish companies "IC Ictas Insaat Sanayi Ve Ticaret AS" and "Doguş Insaat Ve Ticaret AS" (the Association) said it had initiated a case regarding the decision of the Procurement Supervision Bureau (IUB) in connection with the procurement of construction works for the Rail Baltica main line.
The administrative district court has accepted the Association's application and also indicated that it calls on EDZL to temporarily refrain from concluding the procurement contract while proceedings are pending.
The Turkish Association has two demands: to cancel the decision of the Procurement Supervision Bureau (IUB), which left unchanged the decision of EDZL to drop the Turkish bid, and secondly called for the finalization of the contract to be suspended while the proceedings are pending.
Ilker Oksuz, business development manager of IC Ictas Insaat Sanayi Ve Ticaret AS said:
"Such a large and important procurement procedure must be transparent and the results justified, logical and indisputable. Unfortunately, in the case of Latvian Rail Baltica procurement, there are reasonable suspicions that such an approach does not exist. That's why we are satisfied with the court's decision of the moment – an invitation to those involved to refrain from actions aimed at concluding a contract in procurement. We trust that the Latvian judiciary will evaluate the entire process very carefully."
As previously reported, the Association of Turkish companies is unhappy that despite offering the lowest price in the major tender, it was excluded based on a recommendation of the State Security Service (VDD), which it considers unjustified.
In addition the Turkish Association says it "has not yet received a clear answer on the reasons why the VDD has recommended to exclude it from the procurement. At the same time, after getting acquainted with the publicly available information about the activities of the companies of the winning association "ERB Rail Baltica JV" (includes - Eiffage Génie Civil SAS (France), Budimex SA (Poland) and Rizzani de Eccher SpA (Italy)), in the view of the Association of Turkish companies, VVD should be justified concerns whether it is permissible to entrust the construction of the strategic infrastructure object in such political conditions to the joint venture "ERB Rail Baltica JV". Namely, both "Rizzani de Eccher SPA" and "Eiffage Génie Civil SAS" group companies still continue to work on the territory of Russia. It is hoped that the court will pay more attention to this aspect."
