THE Scottish Government has won a £3.2 million legal battle against a gritting business which claimed ministers had broken European Union competition laws during two cold winters.
Nationwide Gritting Services Ltd sued the Holyrood administration for the sum in the Court of Session in Edinburgh.
Lawyers acting for the Southampton-based firm claimed the government broke the rules when they awarded salt contracts to suppliers during the unusually cold winters of 2009-10 and 2010-11.
They claimed Scottish ministers handed the contracts to supply salt to de-ice roads to rivals without giving NGS a chance to bid.
The company claimed to have lost more than £3m from not being able to supply the salt. It sought to recover the sum from ministers.
The Scottish Government insisted those winters were "exceptional" and that this meant the law allowed them to strike a deal without having to hold competitive tendering exercises.
In a written judgement issued at the Court of Session, judge Lord Woolman ruled in favour of Scottish ministers.
He ruled that NGS did not have an established track record in bidding for public contracts and that the Scottish Government had not breached EU competition laws.
He wrote: "I hold that this ground of action was misconceived."
The judgement states the company was founded in September 2008 but did not supply its first customer until September 2010.
The two winters NGS were in dispute with the Scottish Government about were the coldest in living memory.
The government was forced to use up its salt supplies to deal with conditions in which temperatures fell to as low as minus 15 degrees Celsius. The weather also caused other unprecedented events such as the closure of the M8 motorway and the Forth Road Bridge. In April 2012, NGS discovered the Scottish Government had purchased extra supplies of salt during those winters.
The firm then launched legal action in August 2012 claiming Holyrood had broken competition laws.
They said the Scottish Government had not advertised their need to obtain salt in a publication called the Official Journal of the European Union.
But Lord Woolman said evidence during proceedings showed NGS did not consider supplying salt to Scotland until early 2011 and had not applied for earlier contracts offered by the Scottish Government.
Lord Woolman also concluded that during proceedings, NGS did not establish they would have been able to have submitted more competitive bids than their rivals.
A Scottish Government spokesman welcomed the ruling.
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