Procurement Update – Buyer Beware?

The past twelve months has seen a large increase in the volume of procurement challenges coming before the Irish Courts. Below, we look at what is driving these and some key issues arising from recent cases.

BITING THE HAND THAT FEEDS?

During the financial crisis, service providers were faced with a trade off in relation to public tenders: needing to win any tenders that were published (given there was a drastic reduction in published tenders generally during the period) and not wanting to bite the hand that was feeding them (the Government) at the time. On balance, service providers appeared to have been more concerned with not biting the hand that fed them. The cases that did come before the Courts were often from incumbent providers who had been unsuccessful in tender processes for large contracts.