Ocean Winds loses ScotWind legal challenge

Moray Offshore (Ocean Winds) sought £400M (US$500M) in damages from another developer, BlueFloat Energy, for losses said to have been suffered by way of an unlawful means conspiracy by BlueFloat and others.

As HFW construction partner Richard Booth explained, Moray said the bidding process emphasised the need for expertise and experience for the particular site. “After all, commercial-scale offshore wind, and floating wind, is particularly complex,” said Mr Booth. “Crown Estate wanted experienced bidders.”

As Mr Booth – who specialises in construction and engineering matters, advising on contracts, projects and dispute processes – further explained, Moray claimed that BlueFloat’s bid ‘materially misrepresented its experience of floating offshore wind.’ BlueFloat denied this.

“Moray said BlueFloat’s actions were intended to injure Moray’s interests by making false claims in its bid which could be relied on by Crown Estate Scotland to increase the bid’s score. This, Moray said, was unlawful means which distorted the bidding competition and affected the freedom of Crown Estate Scotland to compare bids on a fair basis. 

“Due to BlueFloat’s alleged exaggeration of its experience, Moray’s bid was ranked below Bluefloat’s bid, with the consequence that Moray did not win the floating site lease option. Having failed to win the lease, Moray said it had lost an estimated £400M profit on the site,” said Mr Booth.

Mr Booth said the court dismissed Moray’s claim on the basis it could not prove BlueFloat’s actions had caused it to the lose the bid. The Court pointed out it could not be ruled out that a third party could have won the bid, in which case there would have been no loss to Moray.

The judgement by the court can be found here.