Changwon City Withdraws 4th Masan Marine New Town Bidding Re-evaluation ... "Violation Found, Application Invalidated"

Changwon Special City in Gyeongnam has decided not to re-evaluate the 4th round of public bidding for the Masan Marine New Town development project.

On March 11, the city announced that it had given prior notice of "application invalidation" to the consortium subject to the 4th round re-evaluation on March 9.

The re-evaluation was originally scheduled for January 29 of this year, but on January 19, it was discovered that the business plan submitted by the consortium at the time of the public bid included the name of the applicant company.

According to the bidding guidelines, including the company name in the submitted documents is grounds for disqualification.

In this regard, the city sought legal counsel for over a month from six sources, including external law firms and in-house legal advisors. All advised that, due to a violation of Article 12, Paragraph 4 of the bidding guidelines, the application should be invalidated.

Changwon City Hall, Gyeongnam. Photo by Se Ryeong Lee

Accordingly, the city provided prior notice to the 4th round consortium of the application’s invalidation and plans to convene a selection review committee on March 26 to officially notify the consortium of the invalidation.

A city official explained, "Taking action for a new reason, different from the previous grounds for disposition, does not violate the binding effect of the cancellation ruling. Also, due to the applicant's responsibility, the principle of protection of trust is difficult to apply."

Previously, in December 2020, the city held the 4th round of public bidding to select a preferred bidder for the private complex development of Masan Marine New Town.

At that time, the only consortium to participate in the 4th round, Company A’s consortium, failed to earn over 800 points in the evaluation, scoring 794.59, and was not selected as the preferred negotiator.

Company A was notified in April 2021 by Changwon City that it was not selected as the preferred negotiator and subsequently filed a lawsuit in May of that year, claiming there were issues in the review process and seeking confirmation that the non-selection was invalid.

In 2024, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the consortium. The city then reviewed options for re-evaluation, but as violations by the consortium were discovered, the re-evaluation was canceled.

Separately from the cancellation notice to the 4th round applicant, the city plans to refrain from proceeding with a 6th round of bidding for the project until the ongoing court battle over the cancellation of the preferred bidder—filed by the 5th round applicant and pending a Supreme Court decision—is concluded.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.