Skip to main content

Budimex consortium win Poland’s Ostroda ringroad court case

A district court in the Polish town of Olsztyn has ruled in favour of a consortium of Budimex and Ferrovial Agroman which challenged the awarding of a ringroad contract to a rival. The ruling means that the Salini consortium’s winning bid for the construction of a ringroad around Ostroda is overturned on the basis that it was ineffectually low. This means that the contract will go to the Budimex consortium which proposed to build the road for around €223 million. Polish builder Budimex is the consortium's m
March 18, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
A district court in the Polish town of Olsztyn has ruled in favour of a consortium of 3302 Budimex and 2717 Ferrovial Agroman which challenged the awarding of a ringroad contract to a rival.

The ruling means that the Salini consortium’s winning bid for the construction of a ringroad around Ostroda is overturned on the basis that it was ineffectually low.

This means that the contract will go to the Budimex consortium which proposed to build the road for around €223 million.

Polish builder Budimex is the consortium's main stakeholder, at 95%. The consortium must finish the work within 20 months from the contract signing.

Last December, the same Budimex and Ferrovial Agroman consortium announced it had won a tender to build a 22.6km section of the S3 express road between Silesian town of Legnica in the southwest and Lubin Poludiine, around 170km southeast of the capital Warsaw. The bid was nearly €220 million and construction is expected to take 30 months. Ferrovial Agroman is the engineering and construction arm of Spanish infrastructure group Ferrovial.

Earlier this year the Polish national roads authority 1361 GDDKiA said that it will no longer look for the cheapest offer in road-building tenders. Instead, it will, in line with 1116 European Union requirements, consider whole life cycle factors such as durability, cost of exploitation and quality.

Poland has long been criticised by the road construction industry, both within the country and in the rest of Europe, for handing out tender wins to the lowest bidder with scant regard for life-cycle costs. The government has also been heavily criticised for refusing to negotiate with winning contractors when unforeseen issue push up construction costs.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Strabag closes in on Poland’s S8 Marki-Kobylka contract
    August 19, 2019
    Strabag has nudged into the lead for Poland’s retender of the dual lane S8 section between the Marki and Kobylka junctions, previously held by Salini-Impreglio. Five offers were on the table for the deal with Strabag offering €38 million, well above the €32 million that was budgeted for by GDDKiA, Poland’s road authority. Other bids came from a consortium headed by Warszawskie Przedsiebiorstwo Mostowe Mosty at nearly €40 million, a PORR and Unibep consortium offere at almost €59 million, a bid by I
  • Poland: Rubau Polska makes lowest bid in S61Via Baltica tender
    August 11, 2017
    Poland’s road authority GDDKiA said that five groups have tendered for construction of a 17.5km section of the S61 Expressway. The section runs from Podborze junction to Sniadowo junction and all bids fall within the investor's budget of around €146 million. The lowest offer reportedly was from a Rubau Polska consortium, at around €112 million, while the highest bid was lodged by Budimex at around €139 million.
  • Poland's complex road dispute
    March 1, 2012
    The complex legal case between the Polish General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways (GDDKiA) and Austrian contractor Alpine Bau is continuing in the Polish courts.
  • Poland's big transport plans
    July 6, 2012
    The European Investment Bank (EIB) looks likely to grant Poland a loan of €1.6 billion to carry out several key infrastructure projects. Some of the money will be used to finance the A2 highway from Lodz to Warsaw; Warsaw's southern ring road and a 50km section of the A4 highway to link with Germany.