In June 1998 the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) let a contract to a German consortium, Arteos,1 for the construction of a new Embassy in Berlin and the provision of serviced accommodation for 116 FCO staff for a period of 30 years beginning in March 2000. This part of the report examines the way the FCO managed the competition up to the letting of the contract in June 1998. The scope and methodology of our examination is described in Appendix 1.
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1 The winning consortium was initially called Bebcon, and later changed its name to Arteos. For ease of understanding it is referred to as Arteos throughout the report.