Etesco Challenges Disqualification Before Brazil's TCU in Santos Dredging Tender

Brazilian engineering firm Etesco, which leads Consórcio Santos Dragagem, filed final submissions with Brazil's Federal Court of Accounts (TCU) to challenge its disqualification from the dredging tender for the access channel to the Port of Santos. The company requested that the Santos Port Authority (APS) review the qualification documents submitted by the consortium it heads.

According to Etesco, the consortium submitted a bid of approximately R$ 610 million in September 2025, about R$ 10 million below the proposal from Jan De Nul, which was declared the winner. The company was disqualified over an issue related to its cost spreadsheet, even though, according to its account, it had submitted supplementary documentation within the deadline authorized by the bidding committee.

Etesco maintains that there was unequal treatment: while its bid, the lowest-priced one, was denied the opportunity to submit additional information, the winning bid was granted that opportunity on two occasions, including a price revision. The company cites TCU Ruling 2.316/2026, which noted that the bid ultimately declared the winner was not the same one originally submitted at the public session, but was instead reconstructed during the evaluation process with active involvement from the contracting authority.

Another contested point is the withdrawal of CHEC-D, a Chinese company that held a 1% stake in Consórcio Santos Dragagem led by Etesco. The withdrawal was communicated to the Brazilian company on September 11 and to APS four days later. Etesco is asking the court to examine this withdrawal in light of the commercial interests declared by the Chinese group in Brazil's dredging market, given that its parent company, Shanghai Dredging, belongs to the state-owned group China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), which maintains ties with Jan De Nul and is a shareholder in Mota-Engil, the winner of the Santos-Guarujá tunnel tender.

The tender has already been the subject of successive administrative and judicial challenges. The contract with Jan De Nul was signed in June 2026, but in August the TCU issued a new injunction suspending execution of the channel deepening contract, leaving the project on hold while the dispute continues.