Administrative Court's Judgment On Purported Changes To The Terms Of A Public Procurement Competition

In a judgment dated 28 September 2018 the Administrative Court of Cyprus resolved the question of the extent, if any, to which an action of a contracting authority can modify the published terms of the competition in a public procurement process.¹ The court rejected the recourse filed by the applicant, which sought to annul the decision of the Municipality of Limassol, as contracting authority, to award the contract to another tenderer ('the successful tenderer').

Facts

The Municipality of Limassol published a contract notice relating to the provision of services of a technical inspector for the implementation of projects of European programmes in the department of the municipal engineer in cooperation with the European affairs office ('the competition'). The competition was governed by the Law Regulating the Process of Public Tenders and Relevant Issues 2016,² which implemented the 2014 EU directive on public procurement.³