In the five subject toll roads, the privatizations were set up as leases in which the concessionaire has the obligation to operate the road pursuant to an agreement with the public owner in return for the right to collect tolls on the road. Title to the road does not change hands. Also in both the French and US cases, prospective concessionaires were invited to bid pursuant to a sealed bid process.
The three French concessions were auctioned separately, but at the same time. The process used was indicative bids were invited by the French government, followed by firm bids.
The French government then met with the bidders to review the respective offers. Upon review, the French government declared a winner for each of the three concessions. The bidding process for Skyway and the Indiana Toll Road also involved a prequalification stage and then an invitation to bid. The highest bidder was declared the winner. The particular steps and timeline for the French and US concessions are included in table A-1 in the appendix.
The processes followed in the two countries were very similar (see table A-1 in appendix) with one important exception; as a bidding requirement, offers for the French concessions had to be accompanied by two pieces of supporting documentation: a business plan and an "industrial" plan. The business plan detailed the assumptions for traffic, revenues, maintenance and capital expenditures, financing structure and expenditures. The industrial plan detailed the strategic, management and operational initiatives to be implemented by the concessionaires and commitments regarding labor issues and the relationship with regional and local authorities, and community interest groups.
These plans were subject to review and comment by the French government and evaluated as an integral element of the bids. The consequence of this for the French concessions was that price was not the sole bid award criterion as it was for the U.S. concessions. As will be discussed in more detail, this "best bid", as opposed to "high bid", approach used for the French concessions had the dual consequence of a) lowering the amount of the winning bid, and b) narrowing the spread among bids.