The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, was sceptical about the practicality of the PPP plan, and brought in the American Bob Kiley as London's Transport Commissioner to repeat his success with the New York City Subway using public bond finance. Taking office in 2000 as London's first directly elected mayor, it was difficult for Livingstone to block the PPP process, which was entirely in the national Government's hands as it still owned London Underground, which was not transferred to local control until July 2003. Kiley was fired from the board of London Regional Transport (of which he had been chairman) in 2001 over his attempts to block the PPP scheme. Livingstone mounted a legal challenge, but eventually dropped it as it was unlikely to succeed, and Tube Lines and Metronet reached financial close on the contracts in December 2002 and March 2003 respectively. It was later revealed that the legal challenge had cost £4.2 million directly, as well as £36 million reimbursed to the bidders for costs incurred because of the six-month delay. In April 2005 TfL criticised Metronet, saying it had given capital construction work to its shareholders, whilst Tube Lines, which had competitively tendered its work, was performing much better. TfL also said that new technology promised by Metronet had yet to be seen — "We were supposed to be getting private sector expertise and technology with the PPP (Public Private Partnership) but instead they are just using the same old kit."