site.btaParliament Determines Grounds for Optional Exclusion from Public Procurement Procedure in New Law

Parliament Determines Grounds for Optional Exclusion from Public Procurement Procedure in New Law

Sofia, January 21 (BTA) - Bulgaria's Parliament Thursday passed conclusively provisions of a new Public Procurement Act, setting out the grounds on which a candidate may be excluded from a public procurement award procedure.

The contracting authority will be able to exclude a candidate who has tried to influence the making of a decision on the selection or award of a public procurement, including by submitting false of misleading information. Exclusion will also be possible for a candidate who has tried to obtain information which might give him undue advantage. Other candidates or tenderers that may be excluded are those adjudicated bankrupt or put into winding up, or such that has reached an out-of-court settlement with their creditors, or such that have been disqualified from practising a particular occupation or activity, or who have concluded an agreement with other persons for the purpose of distorting competition.

Another hypothesis of possible exclusion is a candidate through whose proven fault a public procurement contract or a works or services concession agreement has not been performed, resulting in an early termination of the procurement or concession, in payment of compensations or other penalties, except where the non-performance affects less than 50 per cent of the value or scope of the contract.

Grozdan Karadjov MP of the Reformist Bloc noted that these provisions give the contracting authority additional options to exclude a candidate, empowering the contracting authority to function as a judge or prosecutor. "How will the contracting authority assess which information is misleading and which advantage is undue, and to what extent will such an assessment be objective?" the MP asked. He moved for a deletion of the first two provisions. His motion was defeated when put to a plenary vote.
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