Mari Ann Simovart, Bettina Tugendreich, Ján Azud, Joseph Kunz

European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, Volume 18 (2023), Issue 2, Page 99 - 111

This article discusses Article 69 of Directive 2014/24/EU, analysing basic concepts like abnormally low tender, indicating how an abnormally low tender should be identified by the contracting authority and the steps necessary to reach a balanced conclusion on a low-priced tender’s (ir-)regularity. This article explains the meaning of abnormally low tenders from the EU law perspective, providing a basis for the following articles in this special edition of the journal. Keywords: abnormally low tender; Directive 2014/24/EU; Public Sector Directive; Article 69

Rachel Scheele, Grith Skovgaard Ølykke

European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, Volume 18 (2023), Issue 2, Page 139 - 149

This article analyses the application of competition rules to abnormally low tenders. The purpose is to determine whether – and under which circumstances – abnormally low tenders may constitute violations of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU, as well as how contracting authorities may or should proceed in case of potential infringements of competition law. It is concluded that abnormally low tenders may indeed violate EU competition law, which can lead to distortions of competition in public procurement markets in the short and/or long run, resulting in a decrease of social welfare. The parallel existences of the two sets of rules that regulate low prices – but which do not entirely coincide – do not seem to facilitate enforcement of competition law violations, which is crucial to obtaining efficient public procurement. Some proposals for a more competition-oriented approach to abnormally low tenders are provided. Keywords: Article 101 TFEU; Article 102 TFEU; Directive 2014/24/EU; bid-rigging; predatory pricing; principle of equal treatment

Sarah Schoenmaekers

European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, Volume 16 (2021), Issue 3, Page 205 - 219

Directive 2014/24/EU on public procurement establishes rules on the procedures for procurement by contracting authorities with respect to public contracts as well as design contests, whose value is above the European thresholds. Next to purely economic goals, the Directive incorporates common societal goals and aims to contribute to environmental and social objectives and sustainable innovation as well. Directive 2014/24/EU does not refer to cultural considerations in general. It only contains a specific exclusion from the scope of application of the Directive for audiovisual or radio media services and indicates that a special regime is applicable to certain social and other specific services as it is believed that they have by their very nature a limited cross-border dimension. These ‘special’ services are provided within a national context that varies among the Member States due to different cultural traditions. For the procurement of works, supplies and services that do not fall within this special category, specific cultural considerations seem not to be warranted. While on the one hand, procurement procedures have to be applied in conformity with the principle of equal treatment so that all tenderers must have equality of opportunity when formulating their tenders, Article 167 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union holds that Member States are the principal actors in charge of the flowering of their cultures, that the EU should contribute to this and that it should respect the Member State’s national and regional diversity. This article will investigate whether and in how far Directive 2014/24/EU allows room for national contracting authorities to explicitly and implicitly take cultural concerns into account in procurement procedures. The purchase of ‘Mozzarella’ by means of a procurement procedure will serve as an example to analyse whether cultural considerations can implicitly play a role to overcome the ‘buy local’ prohibition, even for products that enjoy a protected designation of origin. Keywords: Directive 2014/24/EU, culture, equal treatment, public interest

Mario Rašić

European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, Volume 16 (2021), Issue 3, Page 193 - 204

The purpose of this article is to provide a concise analysis of the rules applicable to the rejection of abnormally low and non-compliant tenders in the European Union. The paper will deal with a case decided by the European Court of Justice which deals with violations of rights or fundamental freedoms regarding the (potential) irregularities of tenders. The study is exploratory and interpretative in nature. Data used for this research is secondary data: the author analyses prior research, regulations and decisions of the European Court of Justice and national authorities. The first section of this paper will examine the history and development of the institute of abnormally low tenders within the European Union and Slovenian positive law. The main research part of the paper is the analysis of the most relevant cases stemming from the European Court of Justice. Finally, the main scientific contribution of this paper, in addition to the analysis, is the de lege ferenda observations, which may contribute to resolving challenges related to abnormally low tenders in the EU. Keywords: abnormally low tenders, Directive 2014/24/EU, award criteria

Zbigniew Raczkiewicz

European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, Volume 15 (2020), Issue 2, Page 179 - 181

In January 2020 the Court of Justice of the European Union delivered its judgment in Case C-395/18. The Court said that the public procurement regime of the European Union does not preclude exclusion of a tenderer, if the ground for exclusion is applicable to one from its subcontractors. However, such exclusion shall not be automatic.

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

Raquel Carvalho

European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, Volume 14 (2019), Issue 2, Page 70 - 78

This Part II concludes the paper published in EPPPL 1-2019 regarding the implementation of e-procurement in Portugal. In Part I, the evolution regarding e-procurement provisions within Public Procurement Directives from 2004 to 2014 was addressed. Part II now addresses how both the Public Contracts Code and the specific legislation regarding electronic platforms have transposed the 2014 Public Procurement Directives into internal law, namely: (i) how the transposition of articles 29, 22, 40 and annexes of the 2014 Directives was made [not only the legal regime but also how some litigious questions were taken (and solved) to national administrative courts]; (ii) how the first intention of the Legislator to transpose the 2014 Directives went; and (iii) how they were actually effectively transposed. As already referred to in Part I, the transposition of the 2014 Directives in Portugal was made through a two-step procedure. Article 22 of the 2014/24/Directive was regulated by Law 96/2015, a very extensive and complex regulation regarding e-procurement, while the remaining provisions of the 2014 Directives were transposed in 2017 after a period of public discussion of a very different draft. The path that has been built since 2004 is, thus, consolidated.

Raquel Carvalho

European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, Volume 14 (2019), Issue 1, Page 43 - 54

Portugal has been leading the way in the implementation of e-procurement within the European Union. This paper, presented in two Parts, starts, in this Part I, by explaining the framework of e-procurement, describing the Portuguese experience regarding the use of electronic platforms based on factual data assembled by the Portuguese regulatory body. Part II describes the legal regime imposed by the European Union Law thoroughly, particularly by article 22 of Directive 2014/24/EU, which is contained in a specific ruling as it has occurred before the full 2014 Directives transposition. To provide the full picture of e-procurement in Portugal, the paper also explains the projected intention of the Directive transposition and the actual legal ruling enshrined in the Public Contracts Code (PCC). Keywords: e-Procurement; Directive 2014/24/EU Implementation

Andrea Castelli

European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, Volume 13 (2018), Issue 3, Page 207 - 213

In the last decade, the Smart Cities debate has been characterized by a continuous and significant development, giving rise to a wide range of definitions with the purpose of identifying the exact perimeter of the phenomenon. This included determining the processes needed to transform an urban agglomeration into a ‘smart’ city through the development of new technologies and innovation with a social purpose. With the intent of pursuing those targets and creating a model of organization designed to evaluate problems linked to the environmental protection and commercial evolution (and, as a result, to increase the quality of life of people that live in it), the EU introduced a new plan of development (the Europe 2020 program) encouraging public administrations to extend the use of instruments that were already part of the European Union legal system (like the Pre-commercial Procurement, a kind of public-private partnership) and to test new ones, like innovation partnership, introduced by Directive 2014/24/EU on public procurement. This paper aims at analysing the impact of innovation partnership in the European countries, with particular reference to Italy, considering also a comparative perspective between different approaches on the evolution and development of Smart Cities. Keywords: Public procurement; Europe 2020 Strategy; Directive 2014/24/EU; Innovation partnership; Smart Cities