After the 2014 uprising against widespread corruption under former Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych, a group of civic activists and data experts decided to overhaul government procurement. Their efforts produced an open-source e-procurement system, ProZorro (“transparency” in...

The World Bank Group, which commits tens of billions of dollars to funding projects in the developing world every year, is revising its procurement guidelines. The Bank's procurement guidelines are intended to ensure that procurements on Bank-financed projects are carried out efficiently and...

On August 21, the new European directive on defense and security procurement, Directive 2009/81/EC, entered into force. See, e.g.,EU Adopts New Defense and Security Procurement Directive, 6 IGC ¶ 65. Previously, most European defense procurement was considered exempt from the European...

The controversial 'Buy American requirements in Section 1605 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 threaten to stir protectionism leading to an outright trade war. This could be catastrophic in the current economic crisis, particularly since the Obama administration does not...

Using primary data collected from interviews with federal and state government officials and secondary data related to PPE distribution and state healthcare statistics, we discovered evidence that the use of the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) to distribute personal protective equipment to...

In 2013, the European Union and the United States embarked on ambitious negotiations to establish a new free trade area under the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). By mid-2014, however, according to numerous press reports, the TTIP negotiations foundered because of the...

The European Union has erected a significant new barrier to foreign competitors that seek to compete in EU Member State public procurements. In the European Union there are uniform rules (known as “State aid” rules) on subsidies for all Member States, which are intended to ensure that...

The Trump administration recently released the proposed text of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), a major regional trade agreement that, if ratified, would replace the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). While the government procurement chapter of the proposed USMCA was largely...

In 2016, the World Bank formally implemented a massive reform of the guidance it applies to procurements conducted under World Bank-financed projects. Because of the prominent role that the World Bank plays in shaping procurement policy, the Bank’s procurement reforms have had a profound...

The European Commission (EC) has proposed expanding the European Defence Fund, an initiative to fund defense technology developed in Europe. As a general matter, only European firms would have access to the fund for development, and participating European nations would need to commit themselves...