Oana Vodă, Dacian C. Dragoș

European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, Volume 16 (2021), Issue 4, Page 270 - 283

The fine line between public land leasing and service/ works concessions is a topic that was not addressed and investigated by the legal doctrine in the context of the Directive 2014/23/EU on the award of concession contracts. The article aims at analysing the criteria stemming fromthe EU concessions legal framework and from the case law of the European Courts (the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) Court) under which land leases for the exploitation of public domain would be considered works or service concessions and subjected to the rules of Directive 23/2014/EU. Keywords: land lease, public works contract, concession, public service contract

Ádám Auer

European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, Volume 16 (2021), Issue 4, Page 295 - 304

The review phase of public procurement procedures provides the opportunity for taking interim measures. This study shall scrutinise one of these legal institutions. Authorisation of the conclusion of a contract may be requested during the remedy phase of a public procurement procedure before the Hungarian Public Procurement Arbitration Board (PPAB). Under which circumstances is it possible to make such a request? What are the reasonings, grounded on which the PPAB shall establish its decision? The topicality of this study is that the Hungarian Constitutional Court basically has not deemed this peculiar legal institution interim by nature. The legislator must provide for legal remedy in connection to the type of interim measure being scrutinised hereby. Keywords: public interest, public procurement contract, null and void contract, interim measure, Hungary

Clement Mifsud-Bonnici

European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, Volume 16 (2021), Issue 4, Page 337 - 340

Vincent P. Wangelow

European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, Volume 15 (2020), Issue 2, Page 107 - 123

In 2014, a newly enacted set of directives sought to reform the EU Public Procurement Regime, promoting stronger harmonisation but also more flexibility in procurement activities throughout the European Union. Amendments to public contracts after the award have long been a grey area, both for contracting authorities and tenderers alike. However, given the economic importance of public procurement for the European economy, the sound functioning of procurement rules is key. Hence, the article aims to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the new provisions, especially as far as amendments to public works contracts due to the necessity of additional works (following, inter alia, inadequate planning) and unforeseeable circumstances (typically entailing delays, cost overruns etc.) are concerned. In this respect, drawing on sources from legal scholarship of different EU Member States (eg, Germany, France, Spain) and the UK, this article provides an analysis of the rules on post-award amendments to public contracts with an emphasis on Article 72 of Directive 2014/24/EU. To identify the underpinning ideas of these rules, the article considers policy goals and constraints as well as the relevant case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union. Keywords: public works contracts, EU public procurement, amendments, modifications, additional works and unforeseeable circumstances, Directive 2014/24/EU

Paweł Nowicki

European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, Volume 15 (2020), Issue 1, Page 53 - 60

The ‘Second Machine Age’ is a term created by two MIT professors, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, and means the time of emerging technologies: artificial intelligence, machine learning, neurotechnology, biotechnology, virtual reality, Big Data, Internet of Things, blockchain, etc. Emerging technologies are seemingly not related to law, and in particular to public procurement law, but enter into complex relationships with legal regulation. This paper aims to introduce both the opportunities and challenges that some of these technologies (AI, blockchain, smart contracts) create for public procurement praxis, showing that it’s not deus ex machina. New technologies will undoubtedly enrich and improve the public procurement system, but they also raise legitimate ethical and legal concerns. Keywords: Artificial intelligence; Machine learning; Blockchain; Smart contracts; Future of public procurement; Digitalisation.

Katherine Bloomfield

European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, Volume 14 (2019), Issue 1, Page 7 - 15

This article aims to introduce a novel approach to risk assessment in public service commissioning contracts, through the lens of the UK’s defence sector. It begins by providing a concise background to the contemporary service commissioning tools and approaches that are currently adopted by public sector organisations, paying particular attention to the contemporary implementation of framework agreements. Risk assessment in public sector contracting is embedded by the choice of prescribed terms and conditions, which by design, are formalised within a contract to mitigate a menu of recurrent or common risks. Whilst the interpretation, incorporation and reasonableness of the contractual terms and conditions are readily acknowledged amongst legal practitioners as a fundamental pillar for risk assessment, the dynamic patterns associated with risk remains undervalued. To fully account for the dynamic nature of risk, a tool for mapping the migration of risk has been developed in order to provide a new method of ex ante risk assessment to the design and inception of public sector contracts. Keywords: Contracts; Public sector procurement; Risk assessment; Systemic risk; Framework agreements.

Sergi Nin Sánchez

European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, Volume 14 (2019), Issue 3, Page 180 - 196

In the context of the digital transformation of the European economy and society, new technologies have emerged bringing new opportunities for the benefit of citizens, public administrations and businesses. One of these is the Blockchain-based smart contracts rooted in what is known as Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs). This article aims to provide an overview of how DLTs could be successfully implemented in the governance of public procurement, as well as discussing some legal challenges that might appear. Taking into account the proof of concept of all the existing projects in this field, DLTs promise to provide procuring with a high level of transparency, integrity, autonomy, and overall speed-up procurement cycles. While the architecture of a Blockchain-based public procurement scheme is constrained by the immaturity of the technology, it is observed that the establishment of private ledgers (or public-permissioned ledgers) in tender procedures might be more suitable to public procurement. Although the process of implementation might be costly and less feasible in comparison with other fields in the public sector, initiatives focusing on this area should be endorsed. Ultimately, the successful implementation of DLTs in the governance of public procurement is inconceivable without a far-reaching professionalisation of procurement practitioners. Keywords: Blockchain; Smart Public Contracts; Artificial Intelligence; Digital Governance; Distributed Ledger Technology; Digital Procurement.

Ioan Baciu

European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, Volume 13 (2018), Issue 4, Page 307 - 325

Over the years, and owing to a dramatic change in the social configuration of our continent, the initial arrangement consecrated by the Treaty Establishing the European Economic Community of 1957 has evolved, from an essentially economic structure, to an amazingly complex edifice defined by the ‘social market economy’. In this new context, public procurement has been given a central role, as a strategic tool in the implementation of various key social policy objectives. Only this has actually placed it deep in the clash between the traditional internal market rules and those pertaining to EU’s social policies. This article tries to spot the concrete place occupied in the described setting by the possibility to reserve a public contract (an institution discriminatory in its very essence) and how this valuable instrument has been transposed into the national legal framework of Member States. It also aims at showing how, in spite of the fact that, by the adoption of Articles 20 and 77 of Directive 2014/24, the general competition rules haven’t been annihilated but just adapted so to better correspond to the new EU landscape, the solution chosen by several Member States for transposition has in fact perverted their original purpose just to offer sufficient leeway for discrimination based on nationality grounds. Keywords: Public contract reserve; Discrimination; Social policy; Strategic public procurement.

Pedro Melo, Francisco Camacho

European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, Volume 13 (2018), Issue 1, Page 71 - 72

Penelope Alexia Giosa

European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, Volume 13 (2018), Issue 1, Page 30 - 38

Splitting large public contracts into lots fosters competition in the long and short run, and enhances the participation of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in public procurement proceedings. However, the division of contracts into lots can also facilitate anticompetitive practices, such as bid rigging. In order to deal with this, economic theory has established two basic rules. The first one is that the number of lots should be smaller than the expected number of participants. The second one is that the contracting authorities should define at least one lot more than the number of incumbents and reserve it to new entrants. This paper discusses these rules and investigates to what extent they can indeed cope successfully with bid rigging. As it will be proved, they are not panacea for all cases of bid rigging and it is not always practically possible to apply them. Therefore, they need further elaboration and amendments. Suggestions will be made about how we could make them more effective. Some of these recommendations are based on ideas taken from the legal regime of USA.