Historic Procurement Opportunities – Part II

Our prior instalment considered the changes that the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement ("CETA") will have on procurement by public utilities. We will now look at the extent to which the obligations imposed by CETA on procurements by public utilities will be limited by minimum monetary thresholds and certain special exceptions.

Under all procurement treaties including CETA, only procurements which exceed a certain monetary value are subject to the treaty's obligations. Under CETA, only those procurements by  a covered public utility that exceed $630,000 will be subject to its requirements.¹ Procurements by utilities below that threshold will not be subject to CETA. Splitting procurements into smaller bundles is prohibited under CETA (as is the case under all procurement treaties). This means that a covered utility could not beak a procurement with an overall value of $1 million into two procurement of $600,000 and $400,000 in order to circumvent the provisions