DARS told the STA it had been officially informed today of the decision that the selected bidder, the Turkish company Cengiz Insaat Sanayi Ve Ticaret, has been excluded from the process. DARS said, however, it could not yet comment on the decision, which is final. No appeal is possible under Slovenian law.

This means that DARS will have to select a contractor from among the remaining bidders, which offered significantly higher prices, the motorway company said.

It now has 90 days to make a new decision, but is hoping to reach one before the deadline to minimise the delay in the construction project in the 8-km tunnel linking Slovenia's A2 and Austria's A11 motorways.

But once the new bidder is picked, they also have the right to an appeal.

DARS's decision to pick Cengiz Insaat Sanayi Ve Ticaret was challenged by the Nova Gorica-based builder Kolektor CPG, the Bosnian construction company Euro-Asfalt and Gorenjska Gradbena Družba.

The Turkish bid at EUR 89.3m, excluding VAT, was by far the cheapest of the nine bids submitted.

The entire project involves the construction of a new, 3,546-metre motorway tube and a 620-metre motorway section connecting the tube to the existing motorway.

The investment is estimated at EUR 151.6m, VAT excluded, of which construction is budgeted at EUR 121.5m. The construction is estimated to take five years.

Kolektor CGP and Euro-Asfalt, which submitted their separate requests for review in August, bid to complete the project for EUR 109.4m and EUR 106.3m, respectively, in consortium with some other companies, including from abroad. Gorenjska Gradbena Družba offered to carry out the project together with the Prague-based Metrostav for EUR 104.4m.

All other bidders offered higher prices.

DARS said at the time that the request for review could delay the start of construction by two to three months at the most and expressed hope that the tender would not get annulled. DARS chairman Tomaž Vidic said back then that the delay of the five-year project could be huge in case of annulment.

DARS was accepting bids by March and announced its decision in early August.

In the Austrian section of the second tube of the Karavanke tunnel, construction already started in September.