NASHUA – Law Warehouses, of Nashua, filed suit Friday to nullify the 20-year, $200 million contract awarded to worldwide delivery giant Exel, charging that the bidding was “tainted by unlawful favoritism from the start.”
The suit was brought in Hillsborough County Superior Court South against the contract the New Hampshire Liquor Commission signed with Exel in November and asked the court to order a rebidding of the project.
The 42-page suit says the liquor panel was determined to end the state’s long-standing relationship with Law and conspired to give Exel an unfair advantage throughout the bidding process.
“The complaint states that the State Liquor Commission ignored the fact that Exel’s proposal was unresponsive and should have been disqualified and instead ‘manipulated the bid scoring process to favor Exel over other bidders,’ ” the company said in a release Friday.
The suit lists four of what it called “biased and unlawful practices” in the bidding:
Exel did not meet the requirements, including to secure a warehouse to specifications.
The commission changed the process and retroactively amended it solely to Exel’s benefit.
Exel’s bid was unresponsive.
The commission made errors in scoring the competition.
“The complaint outlines clear evidence that the Liquor Commission’s bid process was unlawful in violation of the state’s competitive bidding standards and that the commission and Exel took actions to conceal information to cover up the unlawfulness of a process that favored Exel over the other bidders,” lawyers for Law Warehouses said Friday.
Liquor Commission officials have repeatedly declined comment on the dispute, citing the ongoing litigation.
During an Executive Council breakfast meeting this month, Attorney General Michael Delaney defended the process as “fair and open” and praised the commission for hiring a former deputy attorney general as an outside counsel who advised the commission throughout the bid.
During a recent interview, Scott Lyons, Exel vice president of business development operations, said the commission’s competition was thorough and objective and denied the firm had any leg up on its competitors. Lyons said the company is on track to complete construction of a 240,000-square-foot warehouse that will be ready to take over when the contract calls for it to get the warehouse business this September.
The warehouse is smaller than the two locations Law operates in Nashua and Seabrook, but Lyons said the firm employs cutting-edge technology and uses smaller pallets with higher ceilings to maximize warehouse space. Lyons said Exel has built warehouse space for itself and Fortune 500 companies here and abroad, although he did call the 20-year contract “an unusually long term.”
“We know how to do this business better than anyone,” Lyons said.
Exel, a Westerville, Ohio-based company, is a wholly owned subsidiary of DHL Express. The firm paid fines to federal officials for its use of workers at a Pennsylvania location, but Lyons said it is now fully compliant.
A 2009 Liquor Modernization Act supported by Gov.![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
↧