Exclusion of Areva from Temelín tender was necessity, anti-monopoly office chairman says

Brno, Feb 25 (CTK) - Exclusion of France's Areva from the Czech tender for the completion of the nuclear power plant Temelin, run by power producer CEZ, was in order and the anti-monopoly office UOHS halted the administrative proceedings, UOHS chairman Petr Rafaj told CTK yesterday.

The decision has not yet taken effect and Areva has announced it would appeal against it.

CEZ spokesman Ladislav Kriz said the firm had expected such decision from the UOHS.

CEZ, however, cannot sign a contract with the winner of the tender.

The UOHS has not found that CEZ, the firm that placed the order, would act at variance with public procurement law when it disqualified Areva from the tender process, Rafaj said. No reasons have been found for implementing a corrective measure, he added.

Areva, which intends to challenge the UOHS decision, plans to file a remonstrance with Rafaj and, if necessary, to submit the whole matter to Czech courts, the company said in a statement sent to CTK this evening.

Areva is resolved to protect its interests by turning to the courts of all instances, says the statement.

"The appeal proceedings can take again some two months," Miroslav Hajek of law office Vilimkova, Dudak & Partners commented on the UOHS verdict.

Then Areva can seek remedial measures at administrative courts, which usually takes at least six more months, he added.

The probability that withing the remonstrance proceedings the UOHS chairman will change the decision of his office is very low, Hajek noted.

The Temelin expansion contract cannot be signed because an injunction, issued by the UOHS earlier, is still in force as the current verdict of the office has not yet taken effect.

CEZ, however, can continue assessing the bids of the Japanese-American company Westinghouse and the Czech-Russian consortium MIR.1200.

CEZ excluded Areva from the tender process last October pointing to serious shortcomings in its bid. More details were disclosed neither by CEZ nor by Areva.

"The exclusion of Areva came as an unpleasant surprise to us but we had to follow the law. It would be a better position for us if all the three bidders were still in the tender process," Kriz told CTK yesterday.

Areva filed an appeal against the CEZ verdict to the UOHS. The office confirmed the verdict yesterday.

"We did not expect the UOHS to have possibly come to another conclusion since we are confident that the course of action we have taken was under the rule of law," Kriz said.

Areva still denies having made any mistake. Areva firmly believes that its complex and detailed bid that it handed over to CEZ in July 2012 is in harmony with what Czech legislation requires as well as with the tender's criteria, the company said.

The energy group would like to know the name of the winner of the tender by September and would like to sign the contract with the winner by the end of the year.

Government representative for Temelin completion Vaclav Bartuska told the server Ceska pozice that only a preliminary contract should be signed with the winner of the tender this year. The contract will make it possible for CEZ to launch talks with the State Authority for Nuclear Safety (SUJB) on granting a licence for the power plant. After getting a building permit CEZ will sign the final contract with the winning company, according to Bartuska.

The winning company is expected to build unit three and four at Temelin as a result of which its current 2,000 megawatt capacity will more than double. The project's value is estimated at between Kc200bn and Kc300bn. The project should be completed by 2025 at the latest.