Company requests suspension of maintenance auction at the Port of Santos after declassification

A legal dispute could affect the progress of a million-dollar tender aimed at maintaining facilities in the Port of Santos. The company MPE Engineering filed a lawsuit requesting the suspension of electronic auction 80/2025, carried out by Santos Port Authority (APS).

The aim of the event is to hire engineering services for preventive and corrective maintenance at the port facilities and also at the Itatinga Hydroelectric Plant Village, located in Bertioga.

MPE, based in Rio de Janeiro, had already been carrying out this type of service in the port complex for five years, between January 2021 and January 2026. In the current bidding process, the company won the auction again, but ended up being subsequently disqualified, which led to the declaration of victory by Concrepoxi Engineeringa company from Pernambuco.

According to APS, the MPE’s disqualification occurred because the collective agreement signed by the company with the Union of Port Workers and Workers (Sintraport) would have caused an artificial reduction in the labor costs presented in the proposal.

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The justification presented by the port authority is that there would be incompatibility between the economic activity of the MPE, classified as civil construction, and the category represented by the port union.

Last Wednesday, the judge Alexandre Berzosa Salibafrom the 1st Federal Court of Santos, granted a period of five days for the APS to present a statement before deciding on the request for an injunction to suspend the process.

In a note, the Port Authority informed that it was notified and will respond within the established deadline. The entity also highlighted that, with the termination of the previous contract, it is awaiting the conclusion of the bidding process so that services can be resumed.

The auction, published in November last year, foresees the hiring of a company to provide the services for a period of 30 months. In total, 12 companies participated in the dispute.

The winning proposal presented by Concrepoxi was R$45.9 million, just above the offer from MPE, which had presented a proposal of R$42.5 million. The company Infra portinitially ranked first, ended up being disqualified for not submitting the proposal within the required deadline.

Concrepoxi alleged in an appeal that the MPE’s proposal presented an irregular cost composition, especially in relation to labor remuneration, with the use of lower salary levels than those provided for in the civil construction collective agreement.

When analyzing the appeal, the APS assessed that the port activities represented by entities such as Sintraport are directly related to the operation of the port, including cargo movement, stevedoring, foremanship and checking of goods.

According to the port authority’s analysis, building maintenance services are ancillary in nature and are not part of the core of port activity, which would raise doubts about the applicability of the collective agreement used by the company.

The MPE’s defense, however, disputes this understanding. The lawyer José Eduardo Junqueira Ferraz states that there are legal precedents that recognize Sintraport’s competence to represent workers working within the Port of Santos.

According to him, employment contracts signed with employees allocated to the port would be under the union representation of the port entity precisely because they involve activities carried out within the complex.

The president of Sintraport, Miro Machadoalso criticized the argument used to disqualify the company. According to him, union representation of the workers involved has been ongoing for at least two decades.

Machado also stated that the union intends to legally defend this position and informed that he requested a meeting with the president of the Santos Port Authority, Anderson Pomini. The meeting, according to him, is scheduled to take place next Monday.