Pinsent Masons advises successful bidder Ventia on North East Link

The project involves significant upgrades and extensions to Melbourne's freeway network comprising Victoria's two longest road tunnels, Melbourne's first dedicated busway and more than 34kms of walking and cycling paths. The project is expected to cut travel times between Melbourne's North and South-East by more than 30 minutes, be used by 135,000 vehicles and take 15,000 trucks off the road per day.

The team was led by Infrastructure partner Adam Perl and Financial Services partner Jim Hunwick and included associates Jason Feng, Jesse McNaughton and paralegal Yuliya Dinte.

Commenting on the deal Adam Perl said: “this is a great achievement for Ventia, and a very significant contract for the company. We’ve worked closely with Ventia and the Spark consortium over the past two years to achieve this successful outcome which will bring enormous benefits to the people of Melbourne”.

The deal involved assessing and mitigating risks for events throughout a 25+ year project life, negotiating with both the State and consortium members (including a number of foreign-based construction companies), and providing ongoing procurement support for the past 2 years. The value of the project is $15.8 billion.

This project is one of the largest road projects in Ventia's company history. The successful bid is expected to generate approximately $1.41 billion in revenue for Ventia over the contract period.