Dear Councillor As you are no doubt aware, under the Public Contract
Regulations 2006 a contracting authority may exclude aneconomic operator
from bidding for a contract or may reject any such bid where it is found
that the individual or organisation in question has “committed an act of
grave misconduct in the course of his business or profession”section
23(4)(e).The Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory are
considered illegal by the United Nations and theEuropean Union. In
2004, the International Court of Justice ruled that settlements were
illegal under international law.This position has been reaffirmed by
successive British governments.Israeli settlements contravene Article
49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, which prohibits an
occupyingpower from transferring its own civilian population into
occupied territory.Veolia is a partner in the CityPass consortium, which
constructed the light-rail tramway system linking westJerusalem to illegal
Jewish settlements in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The
rail system will cementIsrael’s hold on these occupied territories and tie
the settlements even more firmly into the State of Israel. Veolia isnow
responsible for the operation of the tramway.The construction of the
tramway involved the confiscation of Palestinian land and extensive
damage to the roadwayon which the tracks have been laid. In Shuafat
the station is built on two-thousand square meters of Palestinianprivately
owned land. More land will be confiscated for the parking lot next to the
station.Thus, Veolia is facilitating Israel’s grave breaches of the Fourth
Geneva Convention, and is complicit in itsperpetuation of those
breaches. Veolia’s actions also aid and abet Israel’s breach of the
Hague Regulations.In 2010 the United Nations Human Rights Council
specifically declared the Jerusalem Light Railway to be “in clear breach
of international law and relevant UN resolutions” (Resolution 13/7) and
the UK government concurred.Veolia also runs bus services operated by
its local company Connex, serving the same function as the
tramway:supporting and consolidating illegal settlements and tying them
more closely into Israel. Moreover, Palestinians areprohibited from using
Veolia’s bus services no. 7 & 19, which serve only the illegal Jewish
settlers.Veolia is also involved in waste collection from illegal Israeli
settlements and dumping in the occupied West Bank.Onyx, a subsidiary
of Veolia Waste Management, still operates the Tovlan landfill near
Jericho in the Jordan Valley,Article 45 of EU Directive 2004/18/EC of the
European Parliament and of the Council of 31 March 2004 on thecoordination of
procedures for the award of public works contracts provides power to
exclude “economic operators“.Specifically, Article 45 (2)(d) allows this
where the individual or an organisation “has been guilty of grave
professionalmisconduct proven by any means which the contracting
authorities can demonstrate.“Veolia’s activities clearly constitute
misconduct sufficiently grave to warrant the exclusion of its subsidiaries
frompublic contracts by virtue of the Public Contract Regulations 2006.
Indeed, if one division of Veolia is involved inactivities of grave
misconduct and profits from such conduct, then the parent company
must necessarily beimplicated in such misconduct and most certainly
profits from such misconduct. That, in turn, means that Veolia as awhole
– all of its divisions and subsidiaries – are implicated in such
misconduct.Veolia’s recruitment policy is discriminatory: its job
advertisement for the light rail in Jerusalem specified thatcandidates
must have knowledge of Hebrew “at a mother tongue level” and have
done a “full military/civic service”.These conditions usually can only be met by
Jewish Israelis and so exclude almost every Palestinian.Veolia currently faces
extreme financial difficulties casting doubt on its viability to the extent of
the 30 years contracts.The NLWA must be aware that Deutsche Bahn, the
transport company owned by the German government, withdrewfrom the high
speed rail project with Israel to comply with international law.On the
basis of the evidence above, it would be a lawful exercise of your
discretion to exclude Veolia ES Aurora fromthe NLWA contracts.I look
forward to your response.Yours sincerely