Mirella Lechna-Marchewka
New Public Procurement Law: Mediation and conciliation at the Court of Arbitration at the General Counsel to the Republic of Poland—good or bad solution?
Under the proposed new Public Procurement Law, in the event of a dispute involving performance of a public contract, amicable resolution of the dispute would be handled by the Court of Arbitration at the General Counsel to the Republic of Poland. But the proposal generates legal doubts.
Substitute performance and party substitution in a public procurement contract
A party substitution in a contract concluded under the Public Procurement Law is possible if the contracting authority explicitly provided for the possibility of such a change in the contract announcement and specified the conditions for such a change. Whether a contractual provision authorising the contracting authority to entrust the performance of the contract to a third party (substitute performance) can be regarded as a review clause allowing for party substitution is an interesting issue in public procurement practice.
Requirements set by a financing bank cannot restrict competition in a tender co-financed using EU funds
If a bank denies financing for a contract for rolling stock (or other items subject to a tender) awarded in conformity with the principle of competitiveness because material collateral cannot be established in Poland, the contracting authority is required to award a contract for delivery with financing.
New PPL: Is everything in line with EU law?
The explanatory memorandum for the draft of the new Public Procurement Law indicates the need to increase the transparency and coherence of national regulations, recognising that the EU’s procurement directives have already been implemented in the Polish legal system. However, the effect of the “small amendment” of 2016 has been unsatisfactory from the very beginning. Hence, the draft contains a number of new solutions justified by the need to reflect the regulations of the procurement directives in the Polish act.
SHA – how technology can ruin transparency of public procurement proceedings
Directive 2014/24/EU of 26 February 2014 on Public Procurement only states that “where a tender is signed with the support of a qualified certificate that is included on a trusted list, the contracting authorities shall not apply additional requirements that may hinder the use of those signatures by tenderers”. Unfortunately, the National Appeals Chamber (KIO) took a different view of the issue.
Changes in access to public procurement
The Public Procurement Law regulates the method of eliminating contractors who do not meet the requirements for such things as integrity (no criminal convictions). The sanction of exclusion from a tender may be imposed on a contractor not for acts committed by the entity, but for acts committed in relation to the activity of a collective entity by natural persons acting on its behalf or in its interest.
How to deprive Polish roads of billions of euros
A lot has been published on the harmful effects on the construction industry of the legal solutions proposed in the draft Act on Prevention of Abuses in Road Projects. A disadvantage of the concept of protection of local subcontractors presented by the Ministry of Justice may be to severely limit the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways’ external financing of projects.
E- procurement caught up in formalism
The European public procurement system is one of the foundations for the functioning of the common market. The principal task of laws in this area is to enable exercise of freedoms guaranteed in international agreements, being in this case unrestricted access to procurement procedures within the EU for contractors based in various member states. To achieve this, EU law not only requires adherence to the principles of a level playing field, fair competition and transparency; it also aims to remove market barriers, including those that are non-discriminatory, but are disproportionate. Regardless of this objective, interpretation and application of public procurement law leads to excessive formalism, rendering procurement procedures unintelligible, and distorting results around which public procurement law revolves.
Improvement of bid bond rules
Work on a concept for a new public procurement law is an opportunity to review the rules on bid bonds. The changes need to go beyond those proposed in the concept.
Railway infrastructure public or private?
The definition of “use of private railway sidings solely for one’s own purposes” requires pro-EU interpretation.
Europe has to come up with a plan for China
China-based businesses have specific objectives and are working hard to achieve a presence on the global markets. The world does not have a plan for dealing with Chinese commercial expansion – commentary on the Inter-Pacific Bar Association conference.
European Commission calls on Austria to eliminate barriers to oversight in public procurement
On 25 January 2018 the Commission sent a formal summons to Austria to eliminate irregularities in national law limiting contractors’ rights to seek review of actions by authorities conducting public procurement procedures.
