Eurostar to face challenge on order

Oct 21 2010 by Iain Laing, The Journal

CHANNEL Tunnel company Eurostar is to face a court challenge over its decision to award a £500m order for new high speed trains to a German company rather than a French one.

Earlier this month Eurostar said that an order for 10 new trains had been won by Siemens of Germany, disappointing the French government which had hoped French company Alstom would get the order.

And yesterday, Eurostar said Alstom, which built the Eurostar trains currently running through the tunnel, was commencing a High Court action to try to stop the contract.

Eurostar said: “Alstom, which submitted a bid as part of the procurement process, has now commenced a legal challenge to try to prevent the signature of the purchase contract.

“Eurostar firmly believes that the arguments raised by Alstom in support of its challenge are without foundation. Siemens submitted a bid that was significantly better than that of Alstom on key aspects.

“Its first argument is that only its own trains can and should be used in the Channel Tunnel because of legacy operating rules in place.”

Eurostar said the issue around the rules related to the use of modern trains with multiple engines – distributed power – rather than more traditional trains with a power car at each end – concentrated power.

Eurostar went on: “Alstom, like Siemens, proposed a distributed power train. It made no objection to recent consultation proposals by the independent safety authority for the Tunnel to update (whilst preserving or enhancing the levels of safety protection) the legacy operating rules.

“It raised no issue until very recently after it had lost the bid.”

Eurostar added: “Eurostar conducted a robust, competitive tender process. All of the bids received were fairly and objectively evaluated against a comprehensive set of criteria. Eurostar has every confidence in the integrity of its procurement process.