Contesting Public Procurement Auctions, Romania’s New National Sport – Transport Min

Berceanu and Romanian Prime Minister Emil Boc attended Tuesday the launch by the Romanian public procurement regulator of an operating manual for the awarding of public procurement contracts.

The manual presents the types of contracts awarded via public procurement, the planning of acquisitions, procedures and ways to award contracts.

The transport minister commented the manual lacks a chapter on “good will”.

"Although rules in Romania are the same as those in Austria, Germany or France, they are often used for different purposes not because legislation is different but because of practices that have to do with good will. The settlement procedure exists everywhere, but unlike in other countries, where it is applied rarely and only when something really happens, in Romania it has become a national sport,” Berceanu said.

The Romanian government decided in March to charge a stamp tax of 2% of the public procurement contract value from anyone who contests the outcome of a public procurement auction, in a move to discourage actions meant to block projects. The tax will be refunded only if the entity that contested the auction gets a favorable ruling.