Parkingeye Limited v Velindre University NHS Trust & Anor [2026] EWHC 1019 (TCC)

Two NHS bodies applied under section 102(2) of the Procurement Act 2023 to lift the automatic suspension imposed by section 101, which prevented them from concluding a car park management contract while a challenge by the unsuccessful bidder, Parkingeye, was on foot. The application was one of the early tests of the suspension regime under the 2023 Act.

HHJ Keyser KC held that the new statutory test is directed at protecting the public interest that the suspension exists to serve, and that the authorities had not shown a sufficient countervailing interest, whether in the wider public interest or the private interests of third parties, to outweigh it. He therefore refused to lift the suspension, while requiring Parkingeye to give an undertaking in damages in the standard form used for interim injunctions.

The decision is an early marker of how the courts approach applications to lift the automatic suspension under the Procurement Act 2023. The statutory test shifts the focus onto the public interest the suspension protects, and a contracting authority must show a real and outweighing reason before it will be released to award the contract.

HHJ Keyser KC concluded that "I shall refuse the applications to lift the suspension".