The corporate chosen to handle the state’s service plazas for the following a number of a long time is demanding {that a} dropping bidder stop and desist of their destructive public relations campaign towards them, whilst the opposite aspect is asking a choose to intervene on their behalf.
On Wednesday, Waltham-based International Companions filed a movement for a brief restraining order and injunction towards MassDOT, which might require the transportation company to swiftly produce paperwork and communications main as much as the end-of-July choice to award a 35-year service plaza lease to Dublin-based Applegreen over the native firm.
In accordance with International, MassDOT accepted an “inferior bidder” in selecting Applegreen and didn’t conduct the bidding course of in a clear method. International is working towards a clock, in line with its Chief Authorized Counsel Sean Geary.
“Time is of the essence. MassDOT’s deadline for signing the lease with Applegreen was originally set for mid-November 2025. However, we recently received information indicating MassDOT intends to advance the lease signing to mid-September 2025,” the corporate stated in court docket filings.
They’re asking the choose to make MassDOT “provide Global with certain requested, non-exempt public records sought by Global pursuant to the Public Records Law – but which MassDOT has failed to produce – within seven days.”
The authorized filings come simply after Applegreen, in a letter from their authorized counsel despatched to the president of International Companions, warned that if the opposite firm doesn’t finish their ongoing marketing campaign of “false, misleading, defamatory, disparaging and/or libelous statements” concerning the successful bidder, they’re going to ask a choose to step in and make them cease.
“Applegreen reserves its right to pursue all legal, statutory, and/or equitable remedies and seek damages and injunctive relief against Global, its officers, employees, representatives, and/or agents as necessary to protect Applegreen’s rights and business interests,” the Irish firm’s lawyer wrote in a stop and desist letter addressed to Eric Slifka, the President and CEO of International Companions.
International has publicly alleged that their bid would have generated $900 million extra in hire income for the state and that Applegreen was not performing properly in different jurisdictions the place they held leases. Applegreen calls these allegations “falsehoods” and has launched an internet site to share their aspect of the story.
Regardless of that stop and desist letter, in line with Applegreen president Bob Etchingham, the Waltham-based dropping bidder has continued spreading misinformation about his enterprise by “repeating the same falsehoods and baseless allegations in an attempt to reverse a process that was fair, supported by third party experts and aligned with the Commonwealth’s goals for a world-class service plaza operation.”
“Across literally thousands of pages of documentation – including a formal debrief by MassDOT – it is clear that Global’s bid maintained the ‘status quo,’ was ‘uninspiring’ and offered ‘little modernization,’ while also being over reliant on fossil fuel sales and financially uncertain. It’s time for Global to end a campaign that is designed to slow down the transfer of these plazas to Applegreen – and therefore slow the investments, operational improvements, superior service and enhanced sustainability that the residents of Massachusetts deserve.”
Applegreen was awarded the contract by MassDOT on June 18, following a 15-month bidding and choice course of. MassDOT didn’t instantly return a request for remark.
