How will the hung parliament affect the government’s big spend infrastructure projects? Heathrow has been thrown into doubt amid concerns in Whitehall that they no longer have the numbers. HS2 is unfortunately full steam ahead thanks to support from the Labour benches. There is however another scandal brewing…
Hitachi’s procurement bid for rolling stock is being ultimately overseen by their rail boss Alistair Dormer, who is responsible for Hitachi’s worldwide rail business. Last year Dormer was involved in a messy dispute with the Italian rail regulator, which accused Hitachi of colluding to keep their bid for an Italian rail company artificially low. Dormer denied the allegations but it was a big scandal in Italy and Italian MPs were furious with Hitachi. Whitehall is already very twitchy about Hitachi over the behaviour of their other top execs. A few months ago HS2 had to scrap an £170 million contract after Guido exposed a series of conflicts of interest. Last thing they want is another difficult bidding process…
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