DWF is suing the government after failing to win a lucrative instruction from it.

The firm lost out on its bid for contacts with the Insolvency Service worth up to £50 million over three years. Four contracts in England and Wales and two in Scotland were up for grabs, but despite loading up its finest powerpoints at a pitch last year and demonstrating mastery of all the required regional accents, DWF failed to win any of them.

However, instead of informing associates of the loss and being glum for an afternoon, DWF is taking the Insolvency Service to court. It claims the IS “committed manifest errors in its assessment and/or scoring”. A breakdown of DWF's 74% score, which placed it 1% behind successful bidder Shepherd & Wedderburn, revealed that DWF scored better for Scotland than for England and Wales. Which raised eyebrows in the firm, since it has insolvency experience south of the border and none in Scotland.

DWF: As seen by the Insolvency Service

The firm was also puzzled as to why Shepherd & Wedderburn, a Scotch firm which it says has little or no experience in England & Wales, won an England & Wales contract. This week, in a pre-trial hearing, the Court of Appeal ruled that Shepherd & Wedderburn's contracts must remain suspended until the matter is resolved. In light of Virgin's successful appeal against the government's cosmically buggered award of rail franchises, maybe DWF is onto something.

DWF litigation head Graham Dagnall suggested that it would not be awkward at all if the Insolvency Service lost and was forced to work with him. "We’re challenging the panel review result purely on the basis of a technical issue", he said. ”Once this technicality has been resolved we’d welcome the opportunity to resume working and supporting the Insolvency Service”.