Procurement Litigation

Our highly renowned and specialist team of lawyers can provide you with advice on public procurement disputes - whether you are a contracting authority defending a challenge, or a bidder considering complaining about a procurement process or outcome.

We have extensive legal and practical knowledge of how public procurements should be run, enabling us to quickly advise on whether a breach of the Procurement Act 2023, public law principles or the Provider Selection Regime has occurred, and the strategic options available as a result.

We manage complex, High Court litigation from the early pre-action correspondence stage through to trial, advising concurrently on alternative dispute resolution and regularly achieving successful outcomes via mediation.   

The early stages of a procurement challenge are critical, given the tight timescales in which litigation has to be brought and the need for unsuccessful bidders to obtain information to understand the merits of their position. We provide bespoke advice on making or responding to specific disclosure requests, including how to deal with third party commercially sensitive information and the establishment of confidentiality rings. Often, our involvement at an early stage can defuse the issues and mean that litigation is avoided.

Should litigation proceed, we work closely alongside the client team at all stages, keeping your overall objectives clearly in mind and developing strategic approaches to the management of the claim.

We can assist you with all elements of a procurement challenge, including:

• conducting detailed reviews of tender documents and evaluation processes to advise on risk of successful challenge to the award decision
• how to use the clarifications process to highlight anticipated breaches identified during the procurement process
• advice on whether to extend the standstill period in response to a threatened challenge
• how to obtain or resist requests for additional disclosure made during standstill or in the early stages of litigation
• navigating the tactical decisions around whether to apply to lift the automatic suspension or whether to resist such an application
• management of e-disclosure exercises, including providing support to your internal teams around their obligations to search for and disclose relevant electronic documents
• advice on alternative dispute resolution, including representation at without prejudice meetings and mediations.

The latest Procurement Litigation news and articles can be found at Bevan Brittan's Insight Information Hub