NICTS Appointment of a Broker to commission the sale of an arrested shipping vessel

There are direct award justifications provided for under Section 41 and Schedule 5 of the PA 2023 which permit a Contracting Authority to award a public contract to a single supplier where the supplies or services can only be supplied by a particular supplier and the following conditions are met:-

Where—

(a) the goods, services or works to be supplied under the public contract are strictly necessary for reasons of extreme and unavoidable urgency, and

(b) as a result the public contract cannot be awarded on the basis of a competitive

tendering procedure.

NICTS has been tasked with sourcing a broker to appraise the vessel ready for sale and delays in appointing the broker will increase the overall costs to the NICTS which are payable from the sale. There is a time pressure to secure the sale of the vessel as soon as practical, as daily mooring fees are being incurred and the totality of these fees is deducted from the sale value of the vessel. At this stage the value of the vessel is unappraised as NICTS cannot engage an independent valuer until the broker is appointed. Furthermore, a skeleton crew must remain onboard the vessel until it is sold. This is a mandatory requirement in line with Maritime Law and Health and Safety requirements of Belfast Harbour. Weekly berthing costs are therefore accruing, as well as the crew’s wages which the creditor has agreed to pay, so it is therefore imperative that the vessel is sold before the costs outweigh the sale value. A competitive tender competition would therefore not be seen as demonstrating best value for money (VFM).

In addition, it is noted that the supplier is also the appointed provider within GB mainland and their costs are set in UK legislation under Practice Direction 61 of the Civil Procedure Rules. The costs for this provision are exactly as set out in said legislation, therefore demonstrating VFM.