I agree with some posters on here that the costs of DOR taking a load of different franchises on just for the short term are too much, im sure there must be a way to allow the current companies to continue, even if it means signing new 6-12 month contracts rather than extending current ones.
Clearly Virgins lawyers were using the full 2 weeks after First was announced as winner, to build a case. It was obviously a good case which the dft have decided they had no chance of winning. While im sure there are many aspects to it, the security bond which First were asked to put up was clearly too low, and how they came to that figure must have been part of Virgins case.