There are a group of commentators who rail against the alleged ‘revolving door’ of federal officials who leave government work and continue their professions in the private sector. Yet, their focus is not on the revolving part of the door, only on the one-way portion where a government employee leaves. But a revolving door means that entry and egress actually go in both directions where such movement from the private sector to the government can create a real conflict of interest.
One such example involves the U.K. entity HS2, which is the taxpayer-owned company building Britain’s new high-speed rail line. Reports indicate the agency revoked a key contract amid allegations of conflicts of interest involving the U.S. engineering firm CH2M. The U.S. firm announced it relinquished a £170m contract to design the second phase of extending the London-Birmingham link onto Manchester and building a branch from the Midlands to Leeds. CH2M’s decision came after the a U.K. engineering firm Mace lost its bid for that contract and had threatened legal action after publicly outing that HS2’s new chief executive, Mark Thurston, was a former CH2M employee.
