Privatization & Public Procurement

Jordan has run one of the region's more sustained privatization and public-private partnership programmes, covering utilities, transport, waste, water and social infrastructure. Our practice acts on both sides of those transactions — for public bodies structuring a tender, and for bidders and lenders assessing whether the risk allocation on offer is one they can live with for twenty years.

On the public side, the work covers procurement strategy, drafting of tender documents and concession agreements, evaluation methodology, and the handling of clarifications and challenges. Getting the evaluation criteria right at the outset is what keeps an award defensible later.

For bidders, we review the tender package before bid preparation begins, flag the clauses that will not finance, prepare qualification and bid documentation, and negotiate the concession, offtake and direct agreements through to financial close. We also advise on the regulatory approvals and land arrangements that determine whether a project can actually be built.

Long-concession risk allocation is decided in a handful of clauses: change in law, force majeure, termination compensation and the definition of relief events. We negotiate those clauses against the twenty-year case rather than the signing-day case, on whichever side of the table we are sitting.