SAFETY AT SEA INTERNATIONAL
A BRAZILIAN court has again suspended a 255M reais ($143M) port scanner tender after a two-year legal dispute.
The scanners are being put in place to meet US requirements that all containers being imported undergo X-ray scanning at their port of origin by 2012.
In 2008, Brazil’s federal revenue department issued a tender for 37 large container scanners to use in ports in the state of Paraiba.
Brazilian company MRA submitted a bid for the scanners within the initial timeframe, but the bid was extended by 49 days by the department to allow more companies to bid.
MRA appealed twice to the Regional Federal Court, and the second time the Court suspended the tender.
Paraiba state then lodged its own appeal against the suspension with Brazil’s Superior Court of Justice, the highest court of appeal for non-constitutional cases. The court sided with Paraiba and the suspension was lifted.
Paraiba successfully argued that “any difficulty in exporting to the United States would represent a massive shake up of national finances and, in particular, in the state of Paraiba.”
But MRA appealed to the Superior Court of Justice again, arguing that the State of Paraiba had no direct involvement in the outcome of commercial bids, and managed to secure a new suspension this week.
Safe Seas 