The Central Administrative Court ordered Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA) to pay more than 1.1 billion baht to Bestlin Group and its allies for unlawfully terminating a procurement contract for 489 new gas-fuelled buses.
Bestlin Group petitioned the court against BMTA in May last year after the Bangkok bus operator scrapped its 3.3-billion-baht contract to supply the vehicles.
According to the ruling read on Tuesday, Bestlin imported 489 natural gas for vehicle (NGV) buses. Some 390 were delivered to BMTA while the rest were confiscated by the Customs Department pending investigation. The city bus operator failed to inspect them and the delivered buses.
BMTA claimed it could not receive the buses because the Office of the Attorney-General asked it to wait until the Customs Department concluded its investigation into the buses' source of origin. The city bus operator later cited the failure of the company to deliver the 489 buses on time in its decision to terminate the procurement contract.
According to the court, BMTA's claim is not consistent with the established facts. The BMTA committee overseeing the bus delivery previously agreed that Bestlin could gradually deliver the buses, and did not have to deliver all 489 at once. In addition, 292 of the buses had already been registered in BMTA's name.
As for BMTA's claim that the buses had been assembled in Malaysia, not China as agreed, the court said the source of assembly was not an essential part of the contract.
As a result, the court ruled that BMTA must reimburse Bestlin for costs incurred from April 12 last year -- the day of the contract's revocation -- up to the day it filed the case with the court. This amounts to around 1.048 billion baht.
Additional fees of 12.1 million baht for Bestlin's construction of the buses' maintenance centre must also be paid by BMTA.
The remaining fees include 98.8 million baht for the NGV buses' maintenance costs and around 547,000 baht in delayed reimbursement for the deal's bank guarantee. The total figure is around 1.16 billion baht plus interest of 7.5% per year.
In addition, the court granted an injunction order against new bids called for the NGV buses after BMTA scrapped the contract with Bestlin, as petitioned by Siam Standard Energy Co, one of the bid contenders. The plaintiff said BMTA's resolution to approve the new purchasing contract for the 489 buses at a cost of 4.22 billion baht was unlawful.
The injunction order could result in the suspension of NGV bus delivery by the new bid winner, SCN-CHO -- a joint venture between Scan Inter Plc (SCN) and Cho Thavee Plc (CHO) -- to BMTA.
