Syndicat des Eaux d’Ile-de-France (SEDIF) has accomplished the process for awarding the brand new concession contract regarding the administration of the general public ingesting water service in Ile-de-France.
The contract will final 12 years and is price round EUR 4.3bn to cowl the availability of ingesting water to over 4 million folks for over EUR1 billion in investments to supply clear, limescale and chlorine free water.
Lacourte Raquin Tatar supported SEDIF in any respect levels and defended their curiosity within the context of disputes which proceeded the signing of the contract and underneath the phrases of which the Paris administrative court docket and the Council of the state validated in all respects of awarding the concession.
The group was led by Benoit Neveu and composed of Xavier de Lesquen, Marine Hue, Romain Meresse, Claire McDonagh and Arthur Pierre.
Q&A with Benoit Neveu
Benoit, are you able to stroll us via your strategic plan when main the group on this challenge and why this plan was one of the simplest ways to strategy the consumer’s calls for?
For SEDIF, this challenge has vital financial, technical, environmental but additionally authorized implications, contemplating the complexity of the contract and the excessive dangers of litigation.
Our purpose has all the time been to supply high-level authorized recommendation to fulfill these challenges, with precision, availability, and adaptableness. I used to be personally concerned every day, main the group and the relation with the consumer, which was made simpler as SEDIF additionally arrange a good and environment friendly devoted group, with a restricted variety of extremely dedicated contacts.
The success of the challenge drastically depends on the planification of duties and the anticipation of challenges, but additionally on the group’s capability to adapt, every day, to the consumer’s wants. Emergencies and last-minute modifications are quintessential for the sort of challenge, and our group is aware of precisely tips on how to take care of them.
How did you and your group pull your finest and most suited property and expertise to work on this acquisition, what useful expertise did every member convey to the board?
We arrange a devoted group, extremely skilled in public contract regulation and composed of legal professionals who’ve nice information of water public providers, the financial operators that may present them in addition to the precise authorized problems with this sector. We used our expertise engaged on earlier concession contracts for the availability of ingesting water, notably in Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lyon, Lille or Marseille.
For this challenge, we’ve repeatedly taken benefit of our robust litigation apply in public contract regulation, which has allowed us to anticipate criticism of the award course of and supply tailor-made recommendation, even when the regulation was silent. We additionally benefited from the invaluable assist of my associate Xavier de Lesquen, a former administrative Justice of the Peace. Our experience has been significantly useful in stopping conflicts of pursuits, advising the consumer on the knowledge to be communicated to the financial operators, and extra usually all through the negotiations.
In lots of circumstances, there are not any apparent nor absolute solutions to the questions which convey purchasers to their lawyer. For that reason, past the mere evaluation of the present state of the regulation, our devoted group of legal professionals on this challenge has systematically appeared for, discovered, and typically even designed probably the most acceptable options to fulfill the wants of our consumer, all the time maintaining authorized safety as a precedence.
Lastly, the sort of tasks requires serving to the consumer to take choices whereas considering quite a few parameters and to reconcile numerous level of views. I consider that my expertise as a mediator helped our consumer within the administration of the challenge, particularly as communication is a key issue of success, as is listening to the consumer and reformulating their must reply them as finest as doable.
Are you able to inform us concerning the ultimate levels of this concession being awarded and whether or not any challenges arose which needed to be addressed within the stress of the final stretch?
There was an incident which modified the parameters of the ultimate levels of the concession award process. Because of an IT problem, a part of an financial operator’s bid was disclosed to a competitor. This breach of confidentiality has led SEDIF to cease the negotiations and award the contract based mostly on intermediate bids submitted earlier than the IT problem. This choice was not a straightforward one to take, and we labored carefully with SEDIF on all of the doable options accessible to establish and consider the dangers of every resolution.
The choice to attribute the contract on the idea of intermediate bids has been challenged by one of many financial operators via a precontractual treatment, earlier than the award of the contract. We efficiently represented SEDIF earlier than the Paris Administrative Court docket, which dominated that SEDIF’s choice was compliant with the French concession contract guidelines, and particularly with the precept of equal therapy between the candidates. This ruling was confirmed by the French Council of State, which dominated that SEDIF had taken the very best choice within the particular circumstances of the case. We’re proud to have efficiently suggested SEDIF and defended this resolution, even contemplating the stress surrounding it.
As soon as the choice to proceed the process on the idea of the intermediate bids was confirmed, we suggested SEDIF on the evaluation of those bids and on the changes of the concession contract, which was significantly difficult because it was unattainable to proceed discussions with the financial operators. A substantial quantity of labor was subsequently required earlier than SEDIF may problem the choice to pick the concessionaire.
This alternative was adopted by one other precontractual treatment, via which the unsuccessful financial operator tried to dispute the concession award process on a number of grounds. Nevertheless, the Administrative Court docket rejected the claims and totally confirmed the legality of all points of the concession award process. Contemplating our involvement at each stage of this process, we acquired this choice with nice satisfaction.
Following this litigation, the contract was lastly signed, however not with out a lengthy sequence of obstacles and several other lengthy months of fixed mobilisation on our half.
As that is such a major challenge, offering clear water to so many inhabitants, how does this challenge align with the values of Lacourte Raquin Tatar?
The SEDIF challenge is an formidable one which completely matches the kind of circumstances that our agency is eager on, for a minimum of three causes.
The primary motive is that this challenge required robust authorized engineering, and the availability of authorized recommendation with excessive added worth, which completely matches the kind of providers that we make a precedence to supply to our purchasers. Certainly, we all the time try to convey a artistic and tailor-made outlook to each scenario, to acquire the absolute best outcomes. Within the case of the SEDIF challenge, we’ve needed to mirror rather a lot on the remuneration mechanisms in addition to on the financing preparations of investments, significantly on the billion-euro development works for brand new installations aiming to supply “clear, limescale and chlorine-free water”.
The second motive is that the SEDIF challenge meets social and environmental preoccupations which naturally matter drastically to our agency: sustainable preservation of pure assets, adaptation to local weather change, participating actions favouring the transition to inexperienced energies, guaranteeing free entry to protected water for all. Past the interior pointers and processes that Lacourte Raquin Tatar has developed in its every day exercise, we try to all the time prioritise circumstances with beneficial impacts on social and environmental points.
The third motive is that offering authorized recommendation on such a challenge essentially implies working with a group composed of legal professionals who’re complementary to one another, but additionally sufficiently accountable and autonomous. That is the very sort of challenge through which associates work immediately with companions and purchasers, and are subsequently shortly confronted to conditions that allow them to provide their finest.
Total, this challenge has been an awesome alternative to reveal our capability to work as a group, and our capability to undertake a world and strategic imaginative and prescient.
What assist is obtainable to Lacourte Raquin Tatar because the concession has now been awarded, do your purchasers obtain steady assist if wanted to make sure the success of their progress?
Our agency continues to advise SEDIF in the course of the efficiency of the concession. This contract will come into full impact on January 1st, 2025 and we’ve a lot preparatory actions to take, contemplating the problems {that a} contract of this scale (greater than 9000 pages in complete…) raises as soon as the efficiency begins.
We subsequently reply all of the consumer’s questions and even take part within the coaching of SEDIF members, who will now need to implement this concession contract, each when it comes to finishing up the funding works and working the general public service, but additionally when it comes to monitoring the concessionaire.
About part
LACOURTE RAQUIN TATAR
LACOURTE RAQUIN TATAR enterprise regulation agency is a pacesetter in its areas of experience: mergers and acquisitions, actual property and taxation. Along with these areas of experience, he has acknowledged expertise in public regulation, city planning, financing, monetary regulation and asset administration, and litigation.
With 85 legal professionals, together with 23 companions and 4 counsels, the agency is dedicated to supply his purchasers with options, and promote ethics and long-term collaborations.
LACOURTE RAQUIN TATAR advises and litigates within the numerous fields of public regulation, primarily within the areas of city planning, public contracts and surroundings. The agency’s public regulation group acts on behalf of traders, builders, industrialists, skilled federations, in addition to organizing authorities and public service operators for the regulatory, operational and monetary implementation of their tasks. The legal professionals within the group have acknowledged expertise, significantly in the true property, city growth, renewable power, native public providers and infrastructure sectors.
Benoit NEVEU
Benoit Neveu has been a lawyer in public enterprise regulation for 20 years.
Benoit Neveu holds a DEA in Public Financial Regulation (College of Paris II – Panthéon Assas), a DESS in Public Regulation Litigation (College of Paris I – Panthéon Sorbonne), and a diploma from the Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationales (College of Paris II – Panthéon Assas). He has centered his apply on public contracts and public providers regulation, in addition to, extra usually, on the regulation of native authorities, each when it comes to recommendation and litigation.
His expertise in auditing, awarding and negotiating public contracts (delegation of public providers, complicated public contracts, partnership contracts, and many others.) in addition to within the group of public providers (creation of buildings corresponding to native public firms, drafting of guidelines of governance, definition of personnel standing, and many others.) and administration of the area of public entities has led him to intervene within the context of challenge administration help missions for public entities in most financial sectors.
As well as, Benoit NEVEU is an authorized mediator (College Diploma of Mediator – IFOMENE).