The High Court ruled that Payzone Ireland Limited was not an eligible person to bring its procurement challenge over the National Transport Authority’s contract for Leap Card operations. The decision concerned only the NTA’s application to dismiss the Order 84A proceedings on eligibility grounds; the judge listed the case for the following day to finalise the orders.
The proceedings concerned a contract to operate, maintain and administer the Leap Card system. Payzone did not tender for the contract. It provided services and information to DXC Technology and Cubic Transportation Systems Limited, which submitted separate tenders. Cubic was awarded the contract but later told Payzone it had not included the company in its successful tender.
Payzone sought, among other relief, to set aside or suspend the contract award. The NTA’s motion argued that Payzone did not meet the eligibility requirements under the 2010 procurement review regulations. For the purpose of that motion, the NTA accepted the facts as set out in an affidavit from Payzone chief executive Jim Deignan.
Justice Brian O’Moore said the regulations required an applicant to have had an interest in obtaining the contract as well as to allege harm from a procurement infringement. He found that Payzone had never sought to win the contract, had submitted no tender and did not claim it should have been awarded the contract. Its extensive work with both tenderers did not, in his view, establish the required interest.
The judge considered European and Irish authorities, including exceptions for cases where a contracting authority’s conduct made participation impossible or pointless. He said Payzone did not argue that the NTA had made its successful participation impossible. The circumstances described by Payzone, including its engagement with both tenderers and its belief that it was part of Cubic’s winning bid, did not qualify it as an eligible person for this claim.
Payzone had also begun separate proceedings under Order 84, for which leave had been granted in June 2020. The judge said dismissal of the Order 84A case would not determine that separate claim. He concluded that the NTA was entitled to an order under its motion, while noting that the wording of the related orders needed clarification. The court did not, in this judgment, determine the separate Order 84 proceedings.