Updated 12.20pm with minister's comment

Malta's waste management agency will "analyse" the implications of a court decision to annul the award of a €600 million tender for a waste-to-energy plant. 

In a statement, Wasteserv said it will now chart the best way forward for the much-delayed project. 

A spokesperson for the Energy Ministry added that both the ministry and Wasteserv remain "fully committed to a fully transparent process".

In comments to Times of Malta, Energy Minister Miriam Dalli said the Court of Appeal focused primarily on the conflict of interest with certain PCRB members.

She said the process led by Wasteserv included the involvement of international consultants and independent auditors to ensure the process was run well.

“We are looking into the conclusions of the sentence to see how our promise, to reach our milestones when it comes to waste service are reached. This is a national project that needs to be addressed. We are looking into this sentence and see the way forward.”

The contract was awarded to a French consortium working in partnership with local firm Bonnici Brothers. 

A court struck down the decision after finding that members of the adjudicating panel within the contracts department had a conflict of interest and ordered a new evaluation process take place

The appeal was filed by unsuccessful bidders Hitachi. 

Members of the tenders evaluation committee and the public contracts review board who dismissed an earlier appeal by Hitachi had a conflict of interest, the court ruled. 

Hitachi first appealed before the public contracts review board, pleading that there had been a wrong evaluation of its bid, irregularities in procedure, and irregular composition of the evaluation committee.

When the appeal was dismissed, Hitachi took its grievances to the court, again complaining about the composition of the adjudication committee and also arguing that two members of the revisions board, Kenneth Swain and Vincent Micallef, also had a conflict of interest.

The consortium also complained about irregular procedures by the board.

Hitachi argued that Swain had a conflict of interest since he was a former director of Enemalta, which had a power purchase agreement with Wastserv. Similarly, another board member, Vincent Micallef was a director of ClearFlowPlus plc which like Eastserv and Enemalta, had Malta Government Investments as its shareholder.

The court upheld the pleas, adding that by so doing it was not saying that Swain or Micallef had decided in any manner which gave them personal gain or that they intended to breach good governance norms.

The court declared the decisions of the revision board in this case as being null.

The court also upheld pleas that Stephanie Scicluna Laiviera stood on the Tenders Evaluation Committee in breach of public procurement regulations as she was also on the list of members of the Public Contracts Revision Board and worked as Wasteserv Procurement Manager

"Once Stephanie Scicluna Laiviera was, by law, precluded from sitting on the Tenders Evaluation Committee, the composition of the committee was irregular and, as a consequence, all decisions it took were irregular too," the court declared.

The court said that once it had already declared the committee's composition was irregular, it did not need to consider the alleged conflict of interest of another committee member, Charlon Buttigieg.