The persistence of doubts on the scope of the causes of non-award of public procurement procedures

BOOKS AND ACADEMIC ARTICLES 2015 in Cadernos de Justiça Administrativa, Nº 109, Janeiro/Fevereiro 2015, pp. 47-64

The latest edition of the journal Cadernos de Justiça Administrativa has just been published and it includes an article by Pedro Fernández Sánchez on the obligation to award and on the causes of non-award in public procurement procedures, as annotation to the latest decision on the matter of the Supreme Administrative Court. One should remember the legislative option underlying the need to keep the balance between i) the public interest that can demand the practice of an act of non-award only when there are effectively supervening circumstances that alter the conditions of the decision to tender, and ii) the private interest of who trusted the call to tender issued by the Public Administration, spending time and resources in preparing a proposal, and not being able to be subject to mere changes of opinion or priorities by the administrative decision-makers.