Ford get stuffed

Ford have just lost a court case involving Transtec the collapsed company founded by Dawn Primarolo's predecessor at the Revenue; Geoffrey Robinson.

Ford had accused the receivers of unconscionable blackmail by demanding a one off payment of £65 million for critical car parts held at the Transtec factory.

The judge threw out Ford's attempt to replace the receivers, ruling they were not acting illegally by exploiting the car group's vulnerability.

The High Court judge told Ford They (the receivers) get what they can. Its their job. Capitalism depends on it and concluded with this homespun advice to get out a bit more!

What a blow for the 'preferred supplier' agreement!

Often described as 'Partnership' by the client and 'Penury' by the supplier, procurement departments hoping for an easy life will be having their board asking searching questions on their exposure to these problems.

What would happen if an agency went bust? Would the receivers hold this gun to our head? Would they use their strong negotiating position to demand a higher margin to make up their losses?

This ruling would indicate the answer is probably yes.

If so, was it such a good idea to cut down the number of Agents from 200 to 4?

I see, it reduces your workload, but from this ruling would appear to increase the risk to the Company.

It reduces cost does it? So has that been passed onto our Contractors? No, which means we have just created 186 very motivated agencies itching to pull contractors out from our site.

How about you do a bit more work and keep open the doors to competition? The alternative is I reduce your workload to zero. Another word for the sack