- Volume 11 (2016), Issue 4
- Vol. 11 (2016), No. 4
- >
- Pages 292 - 300
- pp. 292 - 300
Is There a Devil in the Details? Modification of Public Contracts in the EU and the US
On a fundamental level, the US and the EU law restrict the freedom to modify public contracts for the same reason: to prevent abuse of the fair competition requirement that governs the award of public contracts. A public contract modification must either be consistent with the competition that led to awarding the contract in the first place or alternatively, follow a proper new award procedure. Still, while the underlying rationale of the two systems is the same, differences can appear in details. The article looks at the EU and the US public (government) contract laws with regard to contract modification, and aims to establish if the case law accumulated in the US could serve as a reference when applying the new rules of contract modification in the EU.