In March this year three new procurement directives were published in the OJEU: a public procurement directive, a utilities procurement directive and a directive to regulate the award of concession contracts. The new directives will come into force on 17 April 2014 and it is expected the UK Government will try to implement these by the end of this year. Once implemented, the directives will replace the current UK procurement regime under the Public Contracts Regulations 2006 and the Utilities Contracts Regulations 2006.
The new procurement directives have three main objectives: simplification, flexibility and legal certainty, and as such incorporate certain aspects of well-established case law including the "Teckal" case on public to public co-operation and the "Pressetext" case on modification on contracts post award.
Public Procurement Directive: The key features of the new public procurement directive include:
Utilities Directive: Many of the rules in the public procurement directive have also been incorporated in the new utilities directive. In addition, utilities will be able to award contracts using the competitive dialogue procedure and the negotiated procedure although, unlike the new public procurement directive, there are no restrictions on the use of these procedures.
Concessions Contract Directive: The new concessions directive provides that contracting authorities and utilities must advertise concession contracts with a value above £4,290,000 in the OJEU. The duration of concession contracts must be limited to a maximum of 5 years, or the time in which the concessionaire could reasonably be expected to recoup the investment.
We wait to see what form these directives will take and especially whether the Government will have implemented them into national law by the end of this year.
For more information on this article, please contact Lucy Woods.
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