We’re posting here today a highly significant Legal Opinion on the procurement process for New Velindre. It comes from Simon Taylor, Barrister for Procurement and Competition at Keating Chambers.
The document has been read by an All Party Senedd Committee and the Auditor General, but it seems not to have prompted any commissioning of an official second legal opinion by anyone including Velindre and Audit Wales. The Audit’s handling of the guilty verdict for bid-rigging against the main construction company is surprisingly brief. And the court ruling would normally have excluded the winning company from bidding. Audit Wales, however, is content merely to summarise the brief legal advice to Velindre and Welsh Government .
Legal firm D L A Piper approved this line of action merely because the company had lodged an appeal pending a verdict ‘by final judgement’ i.e. the exhausting of all appeals. But this is a use of legal wording that Colocate Velindre questioned long ago. What our barrister’s Legal Opinion says on this use can be found on pages 4, 5, 7 and 8.
In addition, the Audit reports that Velindre claims the company went through ‘self-cleansing’, an acknowledgement of guilt and the making of amends. It is a common strategy for rebooting a company’s bid when facing an exclusion. However, we complained that it seems no-one has claimed that the company actually did any of this, but only set out the steps envisaged. A paper ‘self-cleansing’.
What’s more, ‘self-cleansing’ requires the convicted company to “cooperate with the authorities”. We have been asking how such co-operation could be possible while the company goes on defying the prosecuting authorities with its ongoing legal appeal. The Legal Opinion’s position on such requirements is found on pages 3, 8 and 9.
Seeing that we have published the legal advice to us, we now call on Welsh Government and Velindre in turn to publish D L A Piper’s advice to them in mid-2022 since so much hangs on it.
