Status of Receipt and Review of Complaints Concerning Government Procurement (provisional translation)

January 25, 2006
Executive Meeting, OGPR

The status of receipt and review of complaints concerning government procurement in the fourth quarter of 2005 is as follows:

1. Complaint number
   Case No.6
2. Date of filing of the complaint
   December 2, 2005
3. Name of the complainant
   Overseas Bechtel Incorporated
4. Name of the procuring entity
   East Japan Railway Company
   Construction of the new Takinogawa Company Housing of East Japan Railway Company
5. Products/services concerning the complaint
   Telecommunications system
6. Outline of complaint
   The qualification requirements for participating in a bidding for construction work, to be conducted by a procuring entity mentioned in 4 above in accordance with the invitation to bid (Official Gazette Extra Government Procurement No. 191 on October 18, 2005), are not appropriate in light of the "Agreement on Government Procurement" (signed on April 15, 1994: put into effect on January 1, 1996), the "Action Plan on Reform of the Bidding and Contracting Procedures for Public Works" (adopted by the Cabinet on January 28, 1994) and the Operational Guidelines with respect to the said plan (agreed upon at a meeting of administrative vice ministers, etc. on June 17, 1996) due to the following reasons. Therefore, we request giving the complainant the qualification to participate in the bidding competition.
   (1) Though "site location" and "consideration for and response to neighboring residents" do not fall into the category of technical conditions, required conditions set are strict beyond the necessary level.
   (2) Since the construction work in question does not fall into the category of "construction work involving high technical difficulty, construction work undertaken under difficult working conditions, etc.," limitations should not be placed based on the posts of engineers, such as chief engineer and managing engineer, if engineers have sufficient experience.
   (3) Even if both of the above two are determined to be appropriate, there would be no need to require bid participants to have performed construction work identical to the construction work in question, with respect to the condition concerning the past performance of the same kind of construction work. Thus, the complainant sufficiently fulfills the requirements for engineers.
7. Outline of the status of complaint reviewing
   Because this case fell under a complaint relating to procurement that the procuring entity considers to be an exception to the coverage of the Agreement, pursuant to Article 23 of the Agreement, the Board decided not to accept it on June 16, based on the provision of 4.(2) of the "Review Procedures for Complaints concerning Government Procurement" (decided by the Office of Government Procurement Review, on December 14, 1995).
8. Other relevant information
   The Government Procurement Review Board conducted consideration in accordance with the "Procedures for Processing Complaints on Government Procurement" (decided by the Office of Government Procurement Review on December 14, 1995: finally revised on January 11, 1999), and prepared a report on January 20, 2006 and delivered it to the complainant, Overseas Bechtel Incorporated, related procuring entity, East Japan Railway Company, and bid participants, Taisei Corporation, Kajima Corporation and Obayashi Corporation, which are representatives of the members of the consortium for construction of new Takinogawa Company Housing of East Japan Railway Company.