The first applications to lift under the Procurement Act 2023 have been decided … and they were dismissed. The judgment is of great significance to all procurement practitioners.
On Friday 1 May 2026, HHJ Keyser KC dismissed applications by the contracting authorities to lift an automatic suspension under the Procurement Act 2023, in Parkingeye Ltd v Velindre University NHS Trust [2026] EWHC 1019 (TCC).
In a closely reasoned judgment, HHJ Keyser KC engaged with s.102 of the Procurement Act 2023 in detail. HHJ Keyser KC held that the test under s.102 was “substantively and not merely formally very different, in both its method and its effect, from the former test as found in regulation 96(2) of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015″. In broad summary, he held that “the public interest will generally tend in favour of keeping the suspension in place, although on the facts of particular cases it may weigh differently”.
Notably, the contracting authorities’ applications were dismissed even with the Judge also finding that “it does not seem to me … that difficulties of assessment of damages would render it unjust to confine the respondent to a remedy in damages”. This is a clear break from the previous American Cyanamid test, by which the adequacy of damages at trial for a claimant operated as a single point of failure.
Stephen Kosmin and Oliver Jackson acted for the successful claimant. They were instructed by Ed Williams and Sam Pringle at DWF Law LLP. The judgment is available here.
