A new event for the International Center for Advanced Communication : the Administrtive Court asks the Council of the Department to cancel the service market signed in November 2000.
It was expected : the CICA (International Center for Advanced Communication) in Sophia Antipolis is going to pass through a new and third call for tenders (see article of April 26th "Sophia : a third round in the CICA battle?"). The Administrative Court of Nice as followed what the Government Commissioner asked for last April 13th : in its judgement, which has been notified on April 27th 2001, the Court has cancelled the signature act of the service market which deals with the management and the animation of the CICA.
6.000 francs for C.I.Com Organisation
The Alpes-Maritimes department, the owner of the building (14.000 m2, around fifty companies hosted among which numerous start-ups which accounts for 900 jobs) is going to cancel the market within two months, a market which was allotted to the Carillion Services company. Then, the Council of the Department will have to call for tenders again in order to find an administrator for its incubator, one of the main buildings of the research park.
The different delays (two months to break the market, between four and five months to call for new tenders) postponed to October or November 2001 the stabilisation of the situation with the coming of a new team or the renewal of the current team. So, the Carillion company should keep on managing the CICA during this period. C.I.Com Organisation, the former administrator which has brought the case before the Court, because they thought they had been illegally put out of the market, is paid an amount of 6.000 francs.
Two months to break the market
In order to better understand the ideas, here are the main articles of the judgement. The first article specifies that ”the decision of the call for tenders commission of the Alpes-Maritimes department, which refuses the candidature of the C.I.Com Organisation company for the service market which deals with the management and the animation of the CICA is cancelled”. By the article 2, the most important in its consequences, ”the signature act of November 2nd 2000 of the service market” is cancelled.
The third article determines the execution conditions :”the Alpes-Maritimes county, for a penalty of 1.000 francs per day of delay at the end of a two month period starting from the notification of the present judgement, has to cancel the market of November 2nd 2000 or to commence proceedings in order to find the nullity of it, of a common accord between parties.”
The Carillion reaction
In a release signed by Jean-Louis Geiger, the manage of the CICA, the Carillion Group, headed in France by Nicoletti, explains its position : ”We acknowledge decisions of the Administrative Court of Nice of April 27th 2001. These decisions result in that the Alpes-Maritimes have to launch a new market for the management and the animation of the International Center for Advanced Communication, what could be done within a delay which has still to be specified.
We see that the Administrative Court has no doubt about Carillion competences in order to satisfy the market’s expectations. However, we notice we have been the first to be penalised by Justice decisions since the market we loyally won and the forces we put in it are called into question for reasons which have nothing to do with us.
We regret that CICA’s companies, with which we have engaged various long run actions in a conjuncture which, as everybody knows, is not very favourable, are as well condemned to go through several months of uncertainty as they will not know who will be their partners and for what kind of actions.
As far as we are concerned, we want to keep on doing the same efforts as those we have done for several months, in the interest of hosted companies on the site and which we are working with in the CICA and in the Alpes-Maritimes.”