The Danish consultant giving evidence to the Moriarty Tribunal has complained of having to repeat his explanations of how the 1995 mobile phone licence competition operated.
Continuing to respond to the examination by Michael McDowell SC, for the tribunal, Prof Michael Andersen said there was a misunderstanding about how the process had developed.
“We have been over this a hundred times,” he said.
When reference was made to one aspect of the assessment process “withering away” this meant that the quantitative assessment of the bids, which involved scoring aspects of the various bids, would not lead to a stand alone quantitative report that would be appended to the final overall report.
The final report was to have included a quantitative and qualitative analysis and a final holistic ranking. Because difficulties emerged that would prevent the production of a stand alone quantitative report, greater emphasis had to be put on the qualitative aspect of the exercise, he said.
However work continued on scoring the bids and this work fed into the qualitative assessments.
“It is critical to understand this if we are to understand the evaluation process correctly,” he said.
At another point Prof Andersen explained in detail how judgment calls formed part of the process. He explained the matter and the chairman, Mr Justice Michael Moriarty, said he believed he had the “gist” of what was being said.
Prof Andersen has been involved in more than 200 licence competitions around the world and was the lead consultant to the 1995 competition that was won by Denis O’Brien’s Esat Digifone.
