Marko Turudić, Melko Dragojević

European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, Volume 19 (2024), Issue 1, Page 14 - 21

Estimated value of procurement is an important initial step in a public procurement procedure, a step which ensures that the contracting authority will be able to allocate the funds necessary to conclude the public procurement contract. Recently, it has become more and more difficult to correctly estimate the value of works procurement. The COVID-19 pandemic, Russian aggression in the Ukraine and the subsequent inflation have substantially raised the prices of construction materials and labour. This has cumulatively and significantly increased the prices of construction and the value of construction public procurement procedures. In this paper, we aim to establish how significant this increase has actually been, and what the main causes and contributing factors were. Keywords: estimated value of procurement, works public procurement, inflation

Uche Nnawulezi, Eti Best Herbert, Salim Bashir Magashi, Safiyyah Ummu Mohammed, Olayiwola Owoade Oladele

European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, Volume 19 (2024), Issue 2, Page 134 - 144

The emergence of Green Public Procurement created an innovative means of procuring goods and labour in line with global environment standards and regulations. Green Public Procurement has become a major mechanism for addressing global issues confronting the environment. This article employs a doctrinal research method, reviewing relevant existing literatures and legislations to consider the prospects of Green Public Procurement having a positive effect in Nigeria, Zambia, South Africa, China and Brazil. To achieve a holistic implementation process, this article advocates for concerted efforts to conduct a sustainability assessment, the establishment of clear sustainability goals, along with training and retraining of procurement staff engaged in the protection of the environment through Green Public Procurement. Keywords: Environmental Protection; Sustainable Development; Green Public Procurement

Marc Pauka

European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, Volume 19 (2024), Issue 2, Page 153 - 156

Chiara Falvo, Federica Muscaritoli

European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, Volume 19 (2024), Issue 2, Page 91 - 103

Deforestation and forest degradation are significant environmental and socio-economic challenges, primarily driven by the global demand for certain agricultural commodities and products. To respond to increasing pressures from EU stakeholders and curb consumption-driven deforestation, the EU recently adopted Regulation 2023/1115, the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). The EUDR applies to a list of goods strongly linked to deforestation and forest degradation and often part of global and complex supply chains. Under the EUDR, relevant commodities and products can be placed on or exported from the EU market only if they are deforestation-free and legally produced. To this end, the Regulation foresees targeted due diligence obligations for market actors to ensure the traceability of their supply chains, collect information, and assess and mitigate risks. The EUDR also includes a procurement-specific provision establishing the temporary exclusion from public procurement processes as a minimum penalty for breaching its provisions. This article provides an overview of this new legal instrument and analyses the interplay between its rules and EU public procurement law. It also aims to characterise the new ‘deforestation exclusion’ in light of the regime on exclusion provided by Directive 2014/24/EU. Keywords: Deforestation Regulation (EUDR); Due Diligence; Sustainable Public Procurement; Exclusion Grounds

Christopher Bovis

European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, Volume 19 (2024), Issue 2, Page 104 - 109

The Remedies Directives leave Member States with a wide discretion as to the creation of the appropriate forum to receive complaints and legal actions against decisions of contracting authorities and utilities, as well as action for damages in public procurement cases. Recent developments allow the recovery of loss of opportunities, in addition to costs and losses of profit as grounds of damages claims against contracting authorities. Key words: public procurement damages, opportunities recovery, access to justice

Marc Steiner, Désirée Klingler

European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, Volume 18 (2023), Issue 1, Page 87 - 93

Aura Iurascu

European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, Volume 18 (2023), Issue 1, Page 6 - 16

With the 2003 Communication on Integrated Product Policy, the European Commission started focusing more on ‘greening’ Member States’ public procurement law, by encouraging the adoption of National Action Plans (NAPs). Subsequently, with the 2008 Communication, green public procurement (GPP) criteria were developed. Since then, the Commission has developed more than 20 standard GPP criteria, which are currently applied voluntarily. Recently, the EU Commission indicated that they are working on mandating GPP criteria and several legislative proposals are foreseeing the setup of mandatory EU GPP criteria for all Member States. Some domestic legislations have already introduced mandatory GPP criteria. In particular, the Italian legislator followed up the Commission’s initiative on NAPs, and adopted mandatory minimum environmental criteria (MECs) for 18 purchasing categories. This article aims to describe and compare the evolution of GPP criteria in the EU and Italy to illustrate and anticipate possible outcomes for the forthcoming mandatory GPP at the EU level. By doing so, the paper emphasises the prominent role played by the Italian Council of State in ensuring the mandatory minimum for environmental criteria in Italian law. Finally, it argues that the Italian approach, which uses the ineffectiveness of the contract as a general and well-established remedy, has proven successful in ensuring the enforcement of MECs. Keywords: GPP criteria; sustainable public procurement; mandatory minimum environmental criteria; Italian public procurement law; ineffectiveness of public contract

Ricardo Pedro

European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, Volume 18 (2023), Issue 1, Page 17 - 26

This article analyses the legal regimes implemented in Portugal for the prevention and combating of corruption in public procurement. Although it is not a new theme, it has received new updates in the law dedicated to the regulation of public procurement – ie, the Public Procurement Code; some of the novelties arising from the imposition of European Union Law on public procurement – while others result from the recent national strategy for the prevention and combating of corruptive phenomena. The implementation of the referred strategy – which covers several areas of action – also benefits matters of public procurement. This has resulted in a set of normative solutions that have strengthened the prevention of corruption, both from an organisational perspective (with the creation of a new public agency for the prevention of corruption) and from an activity perspective (by imposing corruption risk prevention plans, codes of conduct, training programmes and reporting channels, including on contracting authorities). These solutions, particularly the one related to whistleblowing channels, have been reinforced by the recent ‘European Whistleblowing Directive’, which led to the approval of a new national whistleblower protection scheme with immediate relevance in public procurement. Keywords: public procurement; corruption; rule of law; conflict of interests

Marko Turudić, Melko Dragojević

European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, Volume 18 (2023), Issue 1, Page 27 - 39

Directive 2014/24/EU represents a significant step in the right direction for socially responsible public procurement (SRPP). It contains many articles referencing SRPP, of which the most important may be Article 18(2). One such article is Article 57(4)a, which contains discretionary exclusion grounds for violations of SRPP, leaving it up to Member States to decide whether they will make such grounds mandatory or leave them discretionary in national legislation. The aim of this paper is to establish how Directive 2014/24/EU’s approach has affected the use of SRPP exclusion grounds in Croatia, a Member State that decided to leave all of the discretionary exclusion grounds discretionary. This research was conducted by acquiring and analysing all available contract notices from 2022 to establish the percentage, value and other factors associated with SRPP use in public procurement procedures in Croatia. Keywords: socially responsible public procurement; discretionary exclusion grounds

Stelios Tsevas, Kathrin Hornbanger

European Procurement & Public Private Partnership Law Review, Volume 17 (2022), Issue 4, Page 258 - 261