HS2 will find out in September if it can hand a £1bn job to build its station at Old Oak Common to preferred bidder Balfour Beatty when a High Court judge will decide whether to lift a suspension blocking the firm from starting work.

The Balfour Beatty team, known as BBV and which also includes Vinci and French engineer Systra, landed the west London scheme in February – but the award was quickly challenged by one of the beaten bidders, Bechtel.

In papers filed at the Technology and Construction Court in March, the US giant said the procurement process was flawed and claimed Balfour Beatty’s tender price was “abnormally low”. Bechtel added it had incurred a projected loss of profit and revenue of £100m along with £3.5m of “wasted” bidding costs for the scheme known as Lot 2. Bechtel said it wanted an “order requiring the defendant [HS2 Ltd] to award the Lot 2 contract to [Bechtel]”. 

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