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Power Cut - SDE Ltd had no business licence when it damaged power cables
Environment | 17th September 2025, 13:33 |
The contractor who drilled through cables and caused a Gibraltar-wide outage for nearly seven hours did not have an active business licence on the day.
This has been confirmed by the Government Press Office in answers to questions from GBC.
GBC has screenshots of a search on the OFT website yesterday for SDE Limited.
The search yielded no results.
The same search the next day shows the company does have a business licence.
The OFT website says this was issued on the 5th June.
However, in response to GBC questions to the Government press office, a spokesperson said SDE Limited did not have a business licence on Tuesday, the day of the outage, and one was issued on Wednesday, the day after.
The website and Government answer therefore appear to contradict each other.
The spokesperson says action will be taken against the company for operating a business without a licence. They say backdating a licence is not possible in law.
According to the Register of Ultimate Beneficial Ownership, the three shareholders for SDE Limited are Gibraltar resident Sylvia Ryan and Spanish residents Luis Fernandez Merino and Stephan Ossieur.
GBC also carried out a historical search of the company’s website.
It appears the company has been active since 2014, when it was called ‘Sustainable Development Engineers’.
However a phone call to the company’s advertised phone number revealed it shares its offices with another company, and no SDE Ltd employee was in the office.
The Government said the company, SDE Limited, was carrying out work for the planned data centre.
On Wednesday evening, the project developers, Pelagos Data Centre Limited, have said that both the contractor and the sub-contractor engaged for these works will have no further involvement in the project going forward.
In a statement issued via Hassans law firm, Pelagos says this was agreed in consultation with the Government.
It adds it's carrying out an "in-depth private internal investigation" into the incident, and will deliver a report to the Electricity Authority and Government once this is concluded.