On 18 June 2009, the Saeima passed the Public Private Partnership Law. The Law entered in force on 10 July 2009. The Public Private Partnership Law will apply to various projects carried out jointly by one or more public entities and one or more private partners in respect of satisfaction of public needs for the services or construction works. The law will apply to long term projects with the duration of not less than 30 years, and will regulate such issues as the legal forms of the public private partnership, the procedures concerning the commencement of public private partnership procedure, awards of the contracts, various issues concerning the form and substance of the contracts, the rights and obligations of the partners.
The law distinguishes between two basic forms of public private partnerships – contractual partnership, i.e. the partnership which is based on partnership procurement contract or a concession contract, and institutional partnership, i.e. the partnership carried out through a joint venture as a contracting party to the partnership procurement contract or the concession contract. The form of an institutional partnership may only be used if the business to be carried out by the joint venture is such which under the laws of Latvia is permitted to be performed by the public partner, and the joint venture is formed to carry out a function which is assigned to the public partner under the public law of Latvia or which has been delegated to the public partner by another public person and is permitted to be sub-delegated.
Similarly as it used to be under the Public Procurement Law prior to the amendments described above, the Public Private Partnership Law would not apply if the Cabinet of Ministers has classified the information in respect of the concession as subject to secrecy, or if the performance of the concession agreement involves state secret protection measure, or if the application of the law could cause harm to protection of material state interests as determined by the Cabinet of Ministers of a case by case basis. The Law will also not apply if the entry into the concession contract is governed by another law and the concession right is awarded under an international agreement entered into by an EU Member State with one or more non-Member States in respect of construction works or services for a project carried out or participated by these states, or under an international agreement concerning armed forces dislocation, or pursuant to a special procedure of an international organization.
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