Most of the procurement public contracts in the West countries make reference to non mandatory technical norms (prepared and published by private institutions). The question is how those practices could affect the tenders right to have equal opportunities. In other words, how is the level of legal conflicts and claims putted by bidders who believe that such norms are negatively impacting on their rights and possibilities to be selected
In the US government contracting arena the number of protests fluctuates withe status of the economy and level of government spending. Sequestration has lead to a decrease in government spending which means more contractors are bidding for fewer projects. Many businesses in the US exist to help companies file and win protests. The non-mandatory technical norms which often limits or sometimes restricts competition is often overlooked when there is enough contract dollars to go around.
Other dynamics come into play. Businesses learn the political climate of the agency in which they seek opportunities. Agencies sometimes do business with the same few vendors, which offer opportunities for collusion, prime and subcontracting agreements, or rotating opportunities to win contracts. Performing, a cost benefit and risk analysis, some companies may choose to allocate resources searching for new opportunities as apposed to fighting.
If the online procedures development ends with a final online stage, admitting an appeal which came from a Bidder who was rejected in the first assessment stage will lead automatically to the reorganization of the online stage, cancelling the previous result and generating the risk that the new winning offer is placed much lower than the estimated price of the contract. The risk for the price to drop dramatically is caused by the trend to exceed the Bidder stated as the winner of that procedure in the previous online stage and the trend of this winner to stay in the top of the rankings. This aspect is not always favorable to Contracting Authorities because a very low price of the contract attracts the risk of an inferior quality for the performed works/services provided, especially if the estimated value is calculated superficially and without a previous study of the market, based on cost standards older than 4 years.
Finalizing the rejections stated can be made by informing the Bidders over the reasons for rejecting their offers and by developing the operations consequent to this action.
Currently, appeals are submitted after the winner is stated, and after the assessment of the financial offers stated as being admitted. If the Bidders are granted the right to be informed upon the disadvantages of their own offers and upon the right to use the only way to submit an appeal against an unjust assessment, then the Contracting Authorities would risk extending very much the assessment stage for the qualification criteria and for the technical proposals and exceeding the deadlines set for the development of the final online stages.
It would be much more desirable that these unwanted appeals would be solved during the period of assessing qualification criteria and technical proposals than after assigning the winner, whereas this would save much time and work resources allocated for elaborating procedure reports and rankings which have to be updated.
Mirela, thanks so much for your interesting input.
I have seen the articles and papers you published and I would like to know if you have the English version of the one included in "Management Intercultural, volume XVI N2 (31) 2014".
Sorry, i haven't the English version of the article included in "Management Intercultural, volume XVI N2 (31) 2014".
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