What is the Moriarty Tribunal’s view of Michael Andersen / AMI?
The only parties that have ever called into question the work carried out by the Project Team of civil servants and by Michael Andersen / AMI are certain members of losing consortia involved in the second mobile phone licence competition (most notably Persona) and the Moriarty Tribunal itself. (see relevant section of this site to understand the close relationship between the Moriarty Tribunal and Persona)
The Moriarty Tribunal has stated that during the course of its investigations into the second mobile phone licence, it had developed a number of lines of inquiry concerning aspects of the evaluation process. These were based, the Tribunal stated, on a common-sense approach to the evaluation process and on the contents of documentation provided by the Department, including the draft evaluation reports and the final evaluation report. The Tribunal claimed to having been informed by a very close scrutiny of the draft evaluation reports and the final report and the computations upon which they were based. The Tribunal accepts that during this process, its grasp of the technical aspects of the evaluation process was founded on assistance and guidance provided by the officials involved in the PTGSM, and by Mr. Michael Andersen of AMI.
The Moriarty Tribunal further stated that it was anxious to ensure the approach being adopted by it was not based on a “simplistic appreciation” of the technical aspects of the evaluation and so the Tribunal retained the services of Mr Peter Bacon, an economist, in November 2002 (see relevant section of this website re Peter Bacon and the Moriarty Tribunal).
The Tribunal states that Mr. Bacon was not asked to conduct an audit of the second mobile phone process, nor was he requested to examine the evaluation with a view to concluding whether the evaluators reached the correct result. Rather, he was asked to examine aspects of the evaluation methodology and the way in which that methodology was applied. Mr Bacon provided the Tribunal with two reports, namely, Review of specified elements of the Tender Appraisal Process used in the Award of the 2nd GSM licence (March 2003) and Evidence in response to specific questions arising from a review of the Tender Process used in the Award of the 2nd GSM licence (January 2005).
The parties represented before the Moriarty Tribunal only became aware of Dr. Bacon’s involvement on behalf of the Tribunal some three years after his interaction with the Tribunal began.
The first of these reports formed the basis for the statement of the status of certain aspects of the Tribunal’s inquiry into the evaluation process, which was delivered by the Tribunal on 1 April 2003 (Day 205). It is clear that this March 2003 report also formed the basis for the letter of 26 March 2003, to AMI’s Irish Solicitors, where the Tribunal stated, as follows:
“The Tribunal has had an opportunity of further examining the AMI report relied on in the course of the GSM 2 licensing process in Ireland. From the Tribunal’s current reading of the report, it would appear that much of the analysis is unsatisfactory. Moreover, the Tribunal has obtained some expert assistance for the purpose of scrutinising the report and this has confirmed the Tribunal’s tentative view that the report appears to be flawed in a number of ways and indeed may contain a number of seriously fundamental flaws.
The Tribunal is anxious that your client, AMI-Merkantile Data should be afforded a full opportunity of responding to any queries concerning the report and in particular, in circumstances in which conclusions may be reached which may reflect poorly on the authors of the report.” (Emphasis added).
AMI’s Danish Solicitors wrote to the Tribunal on 12 May 2003 and pointed out that the Tribunal had failed to identify any of these alleged “seriously fundamental flaws”. The Tribunal declined to deal with the issue in its reply.
The Tribunal subsequently cross-examined all of the civil servants involved in the evaluation process with questions that clearly sought to undermine and call into question the second mobile phone licence process. This was done in the absence of any public evidence being adduced on the alleged flaws in the process and was evidently based on the “expert assistance” obtained by the Tribunal in private and which was never furnished to the civil servants or to any other represented party or to any witness. The civil servants were effectively questioned “on the blind”.
This supplemental Opening Statement delivered on Day 205 (1 April 2003) when combined with the letter of 26 March 2003 to AMI’s solicitors indicates that the Tribunal had already reached a tentative view on the evaluation process – namely that it was “fundamentally flawed.” This view had been reached before the evidence on the process had been heard. By any standard, this is an extraordinary state of affairs given that no evidence supporting such a view or finding had been introduced in public.
