Public procurement

An efficient and successful procurement process, in which the interests of both the principal and the supplier are safeguarded, is contingent on a thorough insight into the procurement regulations. This means choosing the right advisers, with the appropriate expertise and the ability to communicate across multiple disciplines.

Our attorneys have accumulated specialist expertise in this area of the law as a result of many years of acting as advisers, holding courses and litigating, taking instruction from both principals and suppliers This enables us to advise clients in all phases of a procurement process, such as building and construction projects and contracts for goods and services in various industries.

We assist principals with:

• Training in the form of in-company courses, which can also be tailored to specific requirements
• Choice of procurement procedure
• Drawing up and assuring the quality of tender documents
• Invitations to tender
• Answering questions about invitations to tender and tender documents
• Proceeding with the tender process with negotiation/assistance negotiations
• Evaluating bids
• Rejection issues
• Letter of acceptance and grounds
• Applications for access
• Contracting
• Handling complaints and disputes (KOFA complaints and ESA complaints)
• Legal proceedings

We assist bidders with:

• Training in the applicable regulations and advice on how the business can increase its chances of winning
• Reviewing/assessing tender documents to resolve any lack of clarity, faults or defects
• Assessing whether steps should be taken to have the tender process cancelled because of errors/lack of clarity/unlawful elements in the tender specification
• Questions about the tender specification
• Assuring the quality of bids, including tips on increasing the chances of submitting a winning bid or reducing the chances of rejection
• Assistance in negotiations
• Assessing rejection decisions
• Appealing against rejection decisions
• Assessing whether grounds exist for requesting further details to be given of the reasons for the rejection decision
• Applications for access
• Complaint against the award decision (complaint to the principal or to KOFA)
• Legal proceedings