New Law Threatens Signed Contracts

Until recently, once a contract was signed it could not be overturned for a breach of the EU procurement rules. This will no longer be the case when new law comes into force this December.

There are three main areas where this law is likely to cause problems for housing associations, local authorities and other bodies subject to the EU procurement rules (known as "contracting authorities"). These are where:

• a contract is not advertised via OJEU but should have been. This is a particular concern for development agreements following the Roanne case. Roanne said that development agreements with a total value over the EU tendering threshold need to be tendered via OJEU where the contracting authority has significant control over the development;