Preti Flaherty Wins Appeal of Maine Lottery Contract on Behalf of Scientific Games International

Augusta, ME (Vocus) December 22, 2010

Preti Flaherty, a New England law firm headquartered in Portland, Maine, announced today that it obtained a favorable decision by the Maine Bureau of General Services Appeal Committee on behalf of its client, Scientific Games International, Inc. of Alpharetta, Georgia. Preti Flaherty attorneys Charles Dingman, Sigmund Schutz and Bethany Beausang of the firm’s Government Contracting Practice Group represented Scientific Games in appealing a high profile roughly $35 million contract to supply the Maine Lottery a new on-line lottery system and terminals. The Maine Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages and Lottery Operations had awarded the contract to a competing bidder, Intralot, Inc., but an Appeal Committee invalidated the award on December 14, 2010.

Preti Flaherty presented Scientific Games’ appeal at a hearing held November 22 and 23rd, 2010. The Appeal Committee found that Scientific Games had shown by clear and convincing evidence that the bid process was fundamentally unfair and conducted in violation of law. In particular, the Committee accepted Preti Flaherty’s argument that the Lottery’s bid scoring procedures did not allow the Lottery to fairly rate the comparative merits of the competing proposals. The Appeal Committee’s decision explained that:

By starting every compliant proposal without a substantial deficiency at 90 percent of the available points and then limiting the amount that the Review Committee could deviate from that initial 90 percent score to 10 percent in either direction, the Guidelines failed to allow the Committee to distinguish between technically superior and technically inferior proposals.

The Committee also agreed that the Lottery did not document substantive information supportive of its scoring in violation of the law.

Attorney Charles Dingman explained that, ”Maine’s competitive bidding law requires that bids be scored in accordance with criteria announced in advance in the RFP (request for proposals) prepared for each contract. In this instance, the Lottery assigned 60% of the available points to technical quality (and the rest to price), but then used a scoring methodology that caused all bidders to receive very similar technical points. This compression of the technical scores meant that the Lottery was unable to and did not in fact adequately distinguish between technically superior proposals and poorer solutions. Scientific Games strongly believed that this led to a fundamentally unfair result, and the Appeal Committee agreed.”

With regard to the scoring documentation problem identified by the Appeal Committee, Dingman explained, “All contracting agencies must keep documentation adequate to substantiate their scoring. This ensures a transparent scoring process and prevents agencies from allowing irrelevant or improper factors to enter into the scoring process. In this instance, the Lottery did not keep records that would allow the public to understand the basis for the scores assigned. This violated the competitive bidding law.”

Dingman added, “Scientific Games looks forward to a full and fair opportunity to earn the State’s business.”

Charles Dingman has been practicing administrative law in Maine’s capitol city, Augusta, for over 30 years, with primary concentrations in government procurement, health care reimbursement, and economic regulation. He was recently named Augusta Administrative Lawyer of the Year by Best Lawyers in America.

Preti Flaherty has offices in Boston, MA, Bedminster, NJ, Concord, NH, Portland and Augusta, ME and Washington, DC. With more than 90 attorneys, the firm counsels clients in the areas of business law, construction law, franchise law, energy, environmental, estate planning, health care, intellectual property, labor and employment, legislative and regulatory, litigation, technology and telecommunications. More information about the firm is available at http://www.preti.com.

###

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/12/prweb4920584.htm