The High Court has refused Word Perfect Translation Services Limited permission to amend its challenge to the award of an interpretation services contract by the Commissioner of An Garda Síochána.
The application concerned proposed changes to Word Perfect’s statement of grounds, including claims that interpretation services had been procured without a contractual basis after an earlier framework agreement expired, and requests for orders restricting further procurement. The court considered only whether the amendments should be allowed; it did not decide the underlying challenge to the 18 February 2015 contract award.
The company argued that information in an affidavit filed for the Commissioner on 19 May 2015 gave it grounds to amend its case. That affidavit corrected an earlier statement that monthly contracts had been entered into with members of the previous framework. It also said that Garda stations or units had sometimes requested services from providers outside that framework, including Accord Translation, through error or urgency.
The judge said Word Perfect already knew when it began proceedings that services were being procured after the framework expired and that Accord Translation had been among the providers. The correction about monthly renewals did not provide a good reason to amend the case, the judge said. Word Perfect had not explained why it failed to include those claims in its original grounds.
The court also found that adding claims concerning unnamed providers would introduce new challenges to separate procurement decisions, require further evidence and discovery, and cause significant delay. Those claims would not help resolve the existing challenge, which centred on the February 2015 award.
Other proposed amendments had been overtaken by events: Accord Translation had withdrawn from the tender process, an earlier application for interim injunctions had been refused, and the Department of Justice and Equality framework that Word Perfect sought to rely on had expired. The judge refused permission for each proposed amendment and dismissed the application for leave to amend the statement of grounds.