Poland: changes to public procurement law 4

Poland

On 19 October 2014, changes to public procurement law came into force.

The changes are important for both contracting authorities and economic operators, and will surely have an impact on the practice of awarding public contracts in Poland. Most important changes include:

  • a more informal procedure for non-priority services below the EU threshold values;
  • removing the requirement to exclude contractors who have previously caused damage or had to pay liquidated damages for non-performance or improper performance of a contract, or who have been liable for circumstances resulting in the termination or rescission of a public procurement contract by the contracting authority;
  • adding a new requirement to exclude contractors who have committed a breach of professional duties (due to their own fault) in the period of 3 years before the procurement procedure began;
  • introducing an express provision allowing a third party’s economic potential to be a factor on which contract awards are based;
  • making contractors and any entity undertaking to provide them with resources jointly and severally liable for damage caused to the contracting authority as a result of a failure to make such resources available (unless not due to the fault of the third party entity);
  • allowing contracting authorities to make contract awards for construction works or services subject to a specific requirement (where justified by the subject matter or nature of the activities to be performed under the contract) that the persons performing those activities should be employees of the contractor or subcontractor working under an employment contract;
  • requiring contracting authorities to retain a contractor’s deposit if it either fails to provide a list of entities belonging to the same capital group or information that it does not belong to a capital group, or fails to agree to the correction of an error in the bid which made it impossible for its bid to be chosen;
  • allowing price to be used as the sole criterion for selecting bids only for a contract which is ‘generally available and has fixed quality standards’;
  • making a significant change in the rules for establishing an abnormally low price in the public award procedure.