The court case involving the award, by Eskom, of a R4-billion tender to Dongfang, of China, to repair the Duvha Unit 3 boiler, catastrophically damaged in 2011, has some deeply disturbing elements. While Dongfang’s bid was based on a fixed price, it was nevertheless more expensive than ones submitted by Murray & Roberts and General Electric. More worrying, though, is the role played by the Gupta-family-linked consulting firm, Trillian, in seemingly opening the way for Dongfang, which failed to submit key documents and also fell short on local content. Also disturbing is what seems to be a chunky advance payment to the Chinese firm. At the time of publication, judgment in the case was reserved.