This paper aims to offer some reflections on the legal relevance of general principles of EU public procurement law after the adoption of the 2014 package of substantive Directives on public procurement. It focusses on the field of concession contracts because one of the explicit justifications...

This paper briefly reviews the need for the Proposed Concessions Directive and the opportunity of the proposal; explores the logic and main aspects of the Proposed Concessions Directive, particularly regarding its more ‘concession-specific' rules on their economic balance; and offers some...

This paper attempts a concise comparison of the rules applicable to the rejection of abnormally low and non-compliant tenders in a number of EU jurisdictions (namely, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania, Spain and the United Kingdom). In order to set the common ground for the...

This paper provides a critical assessment of the rules regarding the clarification, supplementation and correction of tenders in procedures for the award of public contracts regulated by the EU 2014 Public Procurement Package. It does so through a detailed assessment of the transposition of...

This piece reflects on the role of public procurement regulation in the face of a situation generating an extremely urgent need for the public sector to buy additional supplies and equipment, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Counterintuitively, at a time of heightened public expenditure, public...

In this short paper, I reflect on the case study of the procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE) for the English NHS during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. I put forward two main claims. My first claim is that the UK Government not only was particularly ill-positioned to deal...

This paper analyzes the rules and administrative practice concerning the selection, weighting and application of award criteria in public procurement procedures under Spanish law. It also touches upon the issue of challenges against award decisions, and the screening of abnormally low bids after...

The development of a more competition-oriented public procurement system is possible, on the basis of the principle of competition that is embedded in the EC public procurement Directives. This paper explores the existence of the principle of competition, roughly delimits its scope, and broadly...

On February 7, 2011, the Spanish National Competition Authority (Comisión Nacional de la Competencia, CNC) published its Guide on Public Procurement and Competition with the goal of offering practical recommendations that contribute to the promotion of effective competition in public...

Competition is the best means to ensure efficient allocation of resources. Hence, the achievement of value for money depends crucially on the development of public procurement activities in highly competitive markets. However, public procurement can generate significant (negative) effects on...