Bruun-Nielsen

Earlier this year the EU Court of Justice issued a preliminary ruling (810/24) concerning preferences in public procurement.   The facts of the case are briefly as follows: The municipality of Milan invited proposals for projects on  “regenerating public urban spaces”. Italian procurement legislation opens up for this design contest-type procedure where the winning project is used… Continue reading Pre-emptive Rights, Public Toilets and Books

In public procurement practice there is a trend towards reducing subjective elements in the evaluation process. The aim is to reduce possibilities for contract awards motivated by vested interests rather than value for money. Subjectivity is especially problematic where bid evaluation is based on quality aspects rather than lowest price or costs. Price and costs… Continue reading What is a nice cup of coffee…??

 The public procurement directives allow direct award in exceptional cases.  Such cases include unforeseen urgency and situations where the contact due to exclusive rights can only be awarded to one specific enterprise. Where direct award is being justified in urgency, it is explicitly prescribed that the urgency should not have been caused by any failure on… Continue reading Locked-in contracting

In a recent preliminary ruling (C-737/22) the CJEU is on the basis of general principles of equal treatment and transparency essentially dealing with what amending of bids and negotiating mean. The ruling concerned an open tender launched by SKI, a central purchasing body established by Danish central government and municipalities, to conclude a framework agreement for provision of… Continue reading The East/West Model – book procurement in Denmark

The EU public procurement directive concerning public sector procurements, also known as the Public Sector Directive[1] lists in Art.57 a number of mandatory and facultative grounds for excluding bidders. The mandatory grounds include mainly various serious criminal activity whereas the facultative grounds include in a more general manner for example grave professional misconduct, significant deficiencies in… Continue reading Exclusion and self-cleaning in public procurement

A recently published decision of the Danish Complaints Board[1] for Public Procurement dealt with details of evaluating award criteria. The procurement in question concerned a contract for supply and servicing of medical equipment. The procuring authority was a Danish authority at regional level (Region Zealand) and the award criteria included in addition to “economy” various quality-related… Continue reading Absolutely Relative Evaluations of Award Criteria

A recent decision from the Danish Public Procurement Complaints Board[1] deals with a tender procedure involving negotiation with bidders. Negotiation is normally not allowed in EU tender procedures because of the risk of unequal treatment of bidders. It is on the other hand recognized that complex procurement may require dialogue with bidders, for example for the… Continue reading Shades of Green

In a recent case on public procurement the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) once again dealt with national legislation allowing automatic  reactions in relation to bidders, notably in cases where collusion is suspected. The case (C-769/21) was about a Latvian contract concerning health insurance for employees in a Government department. Amongst the bidders… Continue reading Automatics in Public Procurement

The Smiley labelling scheme of the Danish Working Environment Supervisory Authority is aimed at informing the public in a straightforward manner about results of recent inspections of working premises in all types of enterprises. Labelling such premises with green smiling smileys indicate a high level of working environment protection with the “crown-smiley” signalling that the… Continue reading Smiling Smileys

A European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling from February this year (C‑461/20)   deals with the question whether contracts already awarded in a public procurement procedure can be changed “down the road” without the need for a new tender. Surprisingly, it is a relatively uncharted area of EU law which during the 2014 reform of the public procurement… Continue reading Succession and effectiveness in public procurement