Swiss-headquartered group Landis+Gyr’s announcement highlighting it will pursue all available legal options in an effort to overturn its disqualification from the final round of a tender staged by Greek electricity distribution network operator DEDDIE/HEDNO for a lucrative contract concerning the installation of approximately 7.5 million smart meters throughout the country, to replace the existing analog meters, appears to be directing the competitive procedure towards unchartered territory.

Over the past decade or so, DEDDIE/HEDNO and parent company PPC, the power utility, have announced a series of tenders for the procurement and installation of smart meters, ultimately to no avail. They have either not taken place or not been completed.

The Swiss-headquartered corporation was disqualified from the latest tender by the Greek operator as it had declared, as a sub-contractor, a production facility other than one it maintains in Corinth, west of Athens, which serves as an international hub for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Normally, a recent decision by the Hellenic Single Public Procurement Authority rejecting the Swiss group’s case would give DEDDIE/HEDNO the green light to move ahead with the next round of the tender.

This would entail forwarding technical specifications of the required new power meters as well as the IMR MDM (Meter Data Management System) to the procedure’s four qualifiers, Greek company Protasis, partnering with France’s Sagemcom Energy & Telecom SAS; US corporation Itron’s Spanish subsidiary; fellow US firm Elster Rometrics’ Romanian subsidiary; and Slovenia’s Iskraemeco.

Landis+Gyr is expected to decide on the next step of its legal recourse once it has received the full details, in writing, of its case’s rejection by the Hellenic Single Public Procurement Authority, expected to be delivered between mid and late March.