The city erred by awarding the rail car contract to an unlicensed contractor, thus violating procurement and state laws, contends losing bidder Sumitomo Corp. of America.

"The city made a mistake and I believe they were misled," said Gino Antoniello, Sumitomo vice president of transportation systems and equipment.

On Thursday, New York-based Sumitomo, one of two losing bidders, petitioned for a hearing before the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs after the company’s formal protest was rejected by the city last week.

The city declined to comment Thursday because the petition is a "continuation of the bid protest process," a city spokeswoman said. An Ansaldo spokeswoman was not available for comment.

Sumitomo contends that winning bidder Ansaldo Honolulu was not licensed as a contractor by the state when it submitted bids and should have been disqualified from bidding.

Ansaldo could be paid $1.4 billion over the life of the contract to design and build 80 rail cars, and to operate and maintain them.

Sumitomo also claims the city failed to properly investigate or consider Ansaldo’s record of repeated delays and failures on other projects. And it says Ansaldo used unbalanced pricing to manipulate the city’s scoring system.

Ansaldo tried to win the bid by submitting the lowest design/build bid of $595 million but offering a high operation and maintenance price of $829 million, Antoniello said. Sumitomo submitted a higher construction bid of $689 million but a lower operating price of $764 million, he said.

Canadian-based Bombardier Transportations (Holdings) USA, whose protest was also rejected by the city, filed its appeal with the DCCA earlier this week, contending it was the lowest bidder.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the amount of Sumitomo’s
construction bid.