Month: December 2020

The PPE scandal shines a light on the worrying future of UK procurement law

Posted on by foluke.adebisi

By Professor Albert Sanchez-Graells (University of Bristol Law School).

The National Audit Office’s Report on its ‘Investigation into government procurement during the COVID-19 pandemic’ found that the relaxation of the standard procurement rules to allow for extremely urgent acquisitions, mainly of PPE, resulted in alarmingly widespread levels of procedural impropriety in the award of up to £18bn in public contracts. Most notably, the NAO report revealed the existence of a ‘VIP procurement channel’ for those with political connections, which resulted in much higher chances of obtaining very lucrative contracts than for those retained under the ‘normal’ pool of potential suppliers. This adds to (and partly explains) earlier reports of very large PPE contracts awarded to companies with no proven track record in the PPE market. (more…)

Arbitration agreements, governing law and contractual interpretation

Posted on by foluke.adebisi

by Dr Mark Campbell, University of Bristol Law School

 

This is currently a busy time for the UK Supreme Court when it comes to international commercial arbitration. The Court has recently handed down its judgment in Enka Insaat Ve Sanayi AS v OOO ‘Insurance Company Chubb’ (‘Enka v Chubb’).[1] That judgment followed an expedited appeal from a decision of the Court of Appeal in April 2020.[2] Added to that, there a judgment in Halliburton Co v Chubb Bermuda Insurance Ltd, an important case involving an attempt to remove an arbitrator in the context of non-disclosure.[3] There are also appeals pending in Kabab-Ji SAL (Lebanon) v Kout Food Group (Kuwait)[4]  and General Dynamics United Kingdom Ltd v State of Libya.[5] (more…)