The government intends to change the law governing public procurements, in two major phases. The first phase, which has already been sent to Parliament, contains changes designed to combat current economic difficulties, such as:
- allowing parties to amend inessential provisions of agreements even where this was not specified by the contracting authority in the tender documents
- allowing contracting authorities not to demand security from the economic operator for its performance of the contract
- allowing economic operators to receive advance payments
The second phase, about which ministries are still consulting, proposes significant changes to the appeal procedures, as well as other measures, for example:
- cancelling a "protest" procedure with the contracting authority; instead, economic operators will appeal directly to the chamber dealing with public procurement appeals
- allowing the contracting authority to specify in the tender documents that it will verify whether subcontractors, as well as the economic operator, meet the tender participation requirements
In general, the changes would apply to future procurements. We will provide further updates as the legislative process continues.
This article was written for Law-Now, CMS Cameron McKenna's free online information service. To register for Law-Now, please go to www.law-now.com/law-now/mondaq
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The original publication date for this article was 01/06/2009.