On 1 July, the European Commission announced that the WTO dispute announced by the EU in March 2022 has been resolved. The dispute concerned criteria in the UK’s Contracts for Differences (“CfD”) sheme, which the EU was concerned required tenderers to commit to levles of local content. The Commission states that the “UK has now clarified that CfD beneficiaries do not need to achieve any particular level of UK content to receive payments. The UK has also published additional guidance to ensure that this is fully understood by the industry.”
In a letter to the Commission, the Secretary of State for International Trade explains that questions in application forms to be completed by tenderers that asked for an account of UK content were for information purposes only and that suppliers would not be scored on the answer or held to it. She set out ways in which that position would be made clearer.
George Peretz QC