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#9 Transfer of Competences & Books we Wished we Wrote

Feb 25, 2021

In today’s episode, we discuss the transfer of competences and responsibilities in light of article 1(6) Directive 2014/24/EU and the relevant case-law including Remondis and Porin Kaupunki. The key question here is how it differs from the award of a public contract, and how this plays out for the national organization of public tasks. For dessert, we discuss two books we wish we wrote.

Host(s)

The English episodes of Bestek – the Public Procurement Podcast are hosted by Marta Andhov, who is an Associate Professor in public procurement law at the Faculty of Law, the University of Copenhagen and a founding member of the Horizon 2020 Sustainability and Procurement in International, European, and National Systems (SAPIENS) project; and Willem Janssen, an Associate Professor in European and Dutch Public Procurement Law at the law department of Utrecht University, and a researcher at the Centre for Public Procurement and RENFORCE.

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BESTEK - The Public Procurement Podcast
BESTEK - The Public Procurement Podcast
dr. Willem A. Janssen and dr. Marta Andhov

Podcast about public procurement & law. Hosts: dr. Willem Janssen & dr. Marta Anhov

About This Episode

In today’s episode, we discuss the transfer of competences and responsibilities in light of article 1(6) Directive 2014/24/EU and the relevant case-law including Remondis and Porin Kaupunki. The key question here is how it differs from the award of a public contract, and how this plays out for the national organization of public tasks. For dessert, we discuss two books we wish we wrote.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:00 Entrée
2:33 Introduction
5:56 Main course
5:56 Remondis case (transfer of competences)
18:57Porin kaupunki case (award of contract)
27:31 Dessert
27:31 What are the books we wished we wrote?

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Episode Transcript

Marta Andhov  0:00 

Welcome to Bestek, the public procurement podcast. Today we’re discussing transfer of competences and books we wish we wrote.

 

About Bestek  0:17 

Welcome to Bestek, the public procurement podcast. In this podcast Dr. Willem Janssen and Dr. Marta Andhov discuss public procurement law issues, their love of food, and academic life. In each episode, Willem,  Marta and their guests search for answers to intriguing public procurement questions. This is Bestek. Let’s dish up public procurement law.

 

Marta Andhov  0:41 

Hello, Willem.

 

Willem Janssen  0:42 

Thank you. I think it’s funny. Whenever we’re talking again, and we start with  this: Helloooo, we always start to laugh. It is a good start to the podcast, I suppose.

 

Marta Andhov  0:51 

It’s always very awkward how to start, right?

 

Willem Janssen  0:54 

Exactly. So they call it like a clean start, right? There’s no long introduction about what we’re going to do, but maybe you can enlighten us?

 

Marta Andhov  1:02 

Just get into it. Yeah, absolutely. Today, we wanted to continue a little bit from our previous episode, where we already indicated that there was an interesting conversation about transfer of competences and responsibilities when it comes to Article 1(6) of the directive, and the starting, of course, of our discussion needs to be this article, which lays down the concept. What the concept points out is that I’m quoting here: -Agreements decisions, or other instruments that organize the transfer of powers and responsibilities for the performance of the task between contracting authorities are grouping of contracting authorities and do not provide for renumeration… – That’s to be underlined and emphasized-….to be given for contractual performance are considered to be a matter of internal organization of the member states concern and as such are not affected in any way by the procurement directive. –  So, this is where we find what the concept is, and we pretty much need to compare and look into the differences between what an award of contract is versus this transfer of responsibilities with the main differentiation as I mentioned earlier on being this lack of of renumeration. Is that fair to say?

 

Willem Janssen  2:33 

Yeah, for sure. So, to make it practical, basically, Article1(6) refers to a situation where one public authority is obliged by national law to perform a certain task, and is responsible for it to say, the security tasks or waste collection tasks. And that authority decides to transfer that responsibility, and the competencies that go with it, to say the competence to levy taxes, or to set the boundaries of how that service is performed to another public authority right. Now, where the issue arises is, and that’s where you rightly pointed out is, very often these are done by contractual agreements, there’s somewhere noted down that this is being transferred to this other authority. Then the question arises: Well, actually is is not the same as a public contract? I think that’s the the level playing field that we’re dealing with when we talk about transfers of competencies, and why is this important? It is because they fall outside of the remet of the directive, whereas words of contract clearly do, and then you would need to resort to like article 12 discussions that we talked about in previous episodes. So here, this would allow you to stay away from the directive entirely.

 

Marta Andhov  3:54 

So in other words, we continue to find ways how to stay away from procurement law. Hahahaha. Yeah, yeah. So up here, I think that it’s crucial when we’re discussing this subject matter to to look on some case law, or you would look for help in interpretation of this provision in case over, but there’s not much really right, we really have Remondis[1]. And then we have this new Finnish case that we we started to discuss a little bit last time.

 

Willem Janssen  4:27 

I’m going to try again, the kaupunki case[2]?

 

Marta Andhov  4:30 

Yeah, the Finnish. Here we really ask for your forgiveness. So, to start with the with Remondis case, which in this area will be the fundamental case there. There are really two issues here. One of them being the operation autonomy versus their political involvement. How you see this Willem?

 

Willem Janssen  4:52 

Well, to start off what I think is interesting, maybe more on a fundamental level, and then I’ll get to Remondis is this link with Article 4(2).

 

Marta Andhov  5:02 

Oh, yeah, sorry.

 

Willem Janssen  5:05 

 No need to say sorry for something that’s in the treaty. Right? I think that’s also linked to what you’re saying about Remondis is that the court has clearly identified this as being part of the national identities of the member states, and it basically says that stated that this is inherent in their fundamental structure, political and constitutional structures, including local and regional self government. So, this is something where EU law should stay away, basically, now, this is a highly disputed article, right? Many member states with rule of law issues have used this article to invoke the non-application of EU law. In the context of public procurement, I think it’s less disputed, right this case,

 

Marta Andhov  5:55 

….less controversial….

 

Willem Janssen  5:56 

less controversial, for sure. So, in this case, law from the 70s already International Food Company, that seemed to hint towards this. So, how we organize the relations between public authorities, in terms of competencies and responsibilities is none of EU business, basically, that’s the idea. So, that’s referred to and that’s basically how the court starts its reasoning in Remondis. To briefly outline this case, from 2016, it’s C51/15, probably one of the easiest ones to remember, I think, in terms of curia.eu. , is in this case, the region of Hanover and the city of Hanover are tasked with waste disposal, waste management services, or obligations, I should say, not services. And then this reorg occurs, which is it has a two fold step is: 1) there’s a transfer of competences to the region, right from the city to the region, and then Zweckverband (Special-Purpose Association), RH is established a kind of a cooperation based on them, or sorry, I should say, a legal entity under public law in Germany. There’s a couple of conditions linked to this as to the establishment of this. And I think that’s important, because that’s where one of the issues that you just pointed out comes from.  There’s a transfer of competencies, meaning that the Zweckverband (Special-Purpose Association) has freedom to impose tariffs to engage in shareholdings and other entities, and there’s some more of them, then the region and the city are still in the General Assembly and can vote based on the the transferred tasks to RH. There’s a transfer of material. So I’m imagining that vans to pick up wastes to clean cities and shares in a company that also was part of the operations before. Last but not least, there’s a compensation for the financial losses of RH. Right? So, this is how this Special-Purpose Association then assumes its responsibilities. The question then arises, okay, well, is this transfer of competences or is this an award of contract to our age by the city, sorry, by the region? And this is where, I think, the court starts to provide more clarity when it comes to a transfer of competences. This is where we get to what you mentioned, the difficulty of interpretation between operational autonomy and political involvement. So basically, what the court says is, is that the authority that receives the competencies need to be primarily responsible for the task, right? So, it needs to be some type of a genuine transfer. So, it means that you cannot be in a scenario where you have to give prior approval to certain decisions, right? So, you need to really get it, and also be able to be obliged to perform that task, but also, it can’t be like a classic contractor, or contracting authority relationship, right, where one stipulates the terms and conditions of the contract, whatever. But then what’s difficult, and this is what you rightly pointed out it is political involvement is that the court still said: – Well, it doesn’t mean that there can’t be any influence whatsoever. – And then my question to you might have would be:…

 

 

Marta Andhov  9:34 

What type?

 

Willem Janssen  9:38 

I think the difficulty here is, is that the, the the region and the city was still part of the General Assembly and could vote. They were still politically involved. Or at least this is how the court phrases it, and then the court kind of says: -Well, this political involvement is allowed because when disgruntled citizens go if the service is not provided properly.-

 

Marta Andhov  10:07 

To the quality.

Willem Janssen  10:09 

Yeah, and so where are they… if the quality is terrible if that bag of garbage is not picked up in the example of waste collection, where do they go? Do they go to the city council? Which has legal democratic representation of these citizens? Or do they go to this Special-Purpose Association or any type of authority performing it for that matter? The courts reasoning seems to be: – Well, they would then go to the region or the city.-So, that’s why they still should be involved, right? These entities still have a responsibility towards their citizens to be able to make sure that this entity provides sufficient services. This is difficult, because, I mean, a clear cut option would have been better right to say you cannot be involved at all. Because if you want a full transfer of competences, then you can’t be involved anymore. No, because otherwise, it’s so I mean, I don’t know how you would look at it, but it’s not a full transfer. Otherwise, if you can still be involved and vote on the tasks that you transferred.

 

Marta Andhov  11:18 

I think that up here, you know, then we stepping away quite substantially, I would say, probably from procurement law. But we are looking very much also in this or maybe not necessary, I think I did also a fair bit of work when when it comes to this public-private partnerships on this question of when you actually can really get rid of all your responsibility, really can outsource pretty much everything, right? Particularly when it comes to specific tasks such as health, such as security, as you mentioned, can you really outsource it to extent that you, you would say: – Oh, I don’t control it, I cannot take care of it. – So someone else needs to, I contractually or in context up here we say about this transfer? I, gave it to someone else, because I think that governments have a certain line of tasks that they cannot really outsource to extend that they don’t haul responsibility for the they always will. Because that’s how we are structured, right? And the interesting part about some of these elements, though, but that’s within some of the procured contract is also where the citizens go in context of services. I remember having a conversation with with Kirsi Maria Halonen, who is curious in our conversation right now for the second time. In Finland, apparently, in context of specific services, you, you can directly go for the company to whom the service has been outsourced to claim any shortcomings, liabilities, etc. So ,you don’t go to the public authority here. I think that the question about liability, responsibility with all these elements is it’s very relevant and then interesting, from, you know, lawyers point of view.

 

Willem Janssen  13:18 

And in a way, I mean, it’s very rare that I disagree with you. So, I’m not going to disagree with you now. But in a way, I’d still don’t really understand it in this scenario. So I fully found that in terms of contracting out when you engage in that contractual relationship. Of course, you’re not going to get rid of that, because very often, it’s also not the way it’s done, right? It’s the first step is you get the obligation as a public authority. The second step is that it’s the performance of that is contracted out, but that doesn’t mean that you’re not obliged to perform it.

 

Marta Andhov  13:48 

Did you not responsible for it?

 

Willem Janssen  13:50 

Exactly. In this scenario, the clean cut would have been to say: – Well, operational autonomy means no political involvement anymore. – Because otherwise it’s not a full transfer right now. I mean, I’m sure a lot of contracting authorities, or sorry, I should say, public authorities, because we’re not in the remet of the directive, would agree with me, right, actually, so I’d like people to agree with me, but they would not, because it would limit the discretion to transfer competencies and still be involved, right? From a lawyers point of view, this is difficult.

 

Marta Andhov  14:24 

Yeah. But would you say that,  or would you see that your answer, or you’ll be more inclined to accept some of those those lines of interpretation is provision if there is a difference, let’s say in karaoke, so if the transfer goes you know, let’s say from Central units, and it’s trans, some certain central government and is transferred to local institutions? Would you accept more than you know that there is a certain need, let’s say of having some element of control or then you would just say: – Well, then we not within that, then you need to look into in house? –

 

Willem Janssen  15:03 

I think the latter. Yeah. You know, in a way, I mean, okay, so maybe this is being an annoying lawyer right now. If you say it should be a full transfer, and you need to have the obligation to perform it, and there needs to be a transfer of responsibilities that’s like, similar to the situation you had before, where you own the competence and the obligation to perform something or the responsibility, I should say. I mean, maybe I’m too consistent and maybe too rigid or whatever. But I do you think that’s very difficult to apply in practice like this. I think everyone can agree on that. And I think that’s also highlighted by the second point, or at least the second problem that I think Remondis raises is financial autonomy, which is what the court then refers to, because that’s the second aspect that’s difficult, and you rightly stress that when you were quoting that Article 1(6), now Remondis was ruled before this article was introduced. There’s clear links to it, because basically, Article 1(6) says is it can’t be remuneration for contractual performance. How does that relate to pecuniary interest? And then basically, what the court does in Remondis is, it says: – Well, it kind of seems to imply that a genuine transfer does not materialize if the allocating authority retains financial control over the entity that receives the competence.-  But then the court does say: – If it’s not performed properly, then it might have to step in. – Because you know, if and I should say if, and the court says logical even necessary as a consequence, that the financial losses are compensated. Right. So, then if I reflect on the concept of pecuniary interest, or compensation of losses, I know a lot of construction companies in crisis times would love to get their their losses compensated….

 

 

Marta Andhov  17:11 

 Their hands on this….

 

Willem Janssen  17:12 

Yeah, I mean, I would love to run a company that I mean, I would want to become an entrepreneur, if I would get my losses compensated, even me as a dusty academic, right. And the court then says: – Well, that type of financial involvement, so one, you can give those shares you can give, like, kind of a dowry, dowry type of thing, when you pass on those competences, but you can also compensate them. And this is, I think, where it gets interesting, the court then says: – Well, this authority cannot be sued in insolvency proceedings. – According to the court, normally, that would follow from the internal organization of a member state is that these regions couldn’t go bankrupt. So now, these this region, and the city would need to uphold the same standard with this Special-Purpose Association…

 

Marta Andhov  18:11 

… the performance of the tasks.

 

Willem Janssen  18:13 

 Exactly. So all of a sudden, that’s brought in. So, in a way, it’s interesting, because it’s a safeguard for the internal organization of the member states. Again, I think it blurs the line. So, financial autonomy is the standpoint you can give shares, you can give money, but you can also compensate for losses, because that seems to be a logical consequence. Again, that makes a difficult balance, because in a way, you could argue that isn’t pecuniary interest, and it should have been an award of contract. Right? That falls under the directive. So these two discussion points, and in the last episode, we talked about issues, maybe these are problems or like they are similar.

 

Marta Andhov  18:57 

Definitely, but then, but then we have also this newer case, this Finnish case that that brings a question of how does it relate really to Remondis? Are we still talking about the same or this is a simple payment type, right? So, how this Finnish case, how we compare it, what is the relationship between this new C-328/19 in relations to Remondis?

 

Willem Janssen  19:30 

Yeah, so I think it’s a case that heavily relies on Remondis and appears to or at least this is what the court makes it out to do, it appears to just apply the framework that Remondis set out? Right? I’m not sure if that’s the case, but I  will gladly welcome responses from anyone listening, because it’s a very difficult case that heavily relies on the Finnish setup. Now, in the previous episode, we discussed the aspect of institutionalized cooperation that comes in now we’re really discussing, I think the first preliminary question that was posed to the court. So, what happens here, and I’m really summarizing that there’s two agreements that are signed. One agreement for transport services, some cities and municipalities are involved under which the city of Porin, and there’s an agreement for health services between three cities or communes, as they’re called, again, the city of Porin is involved, right? So, there’s different actors involved in these agreements, and in these agreements, there’s a transfer of responsibilities and competencies to as what finished law risk describes as a responsible municipality. Now, again, this is me translating because this case is not available in English, as we run into before. I figured it out, since then. It has something to do with the departure of the United Kingdom is that there’s a backlog in the translation department of the Court of Justice. So we should be getting these English judgments at some point.  For now, you’ll have to do with my translations.

 

Marta Andhov  21:13 

I hope that is correct.

 

Willem Janssen  21:14 

Correct. Same goes for my translation of ancillary activity and start to start cologne case. But so on the finished law, the boy he becomes the responsible municipality. And there’s this internal Committee, which is supposed to which is called an internal committee is safeguarding social, fundamental rights. They actually are in charge, and they then award a contract to a separate entity that is controlled by the city. So, this is step number two, and that is a contract for transport of handicapped people. A competitor argues against this and says: – Well, this is, I mean, generally said, it challenged the transfer of competences and also the, the the award of contract in the second instance. – Now, if we only talk about the first issue, I think what’s interesting here is that there was still a close involvement, again, by the the entities that previously held the transfer held the competencies and responsibilities as this committee, which is approved by the Council of Porin, with 18 representatives in which like a couple of entities participate, they have to approve contracts, they can set tariffs, etc, etc. I think what’s an interesting issue, and I think we’ll leave it at that, in this case is that, again, there’s a reference to Article 4(2) of the treaty, and it says: – You can influence it, but it can’t be an influence in the concrete operation of a task. – , which is another addition to it. Yeah, I know, the clarification of operational autonomy. Again, in terms of finances, what’s interesting is the entities that previously held these competencies and responsibilities, they still pay pro rata for the use of those transport support services. So just to remind you, there’s been a transfer of competencies in step one, in step two, the city of Porin contracts an in house entity, and then the operations of that in-house entity are also paid by the entities that transferred those competences based on how many citizens within their regions or cities use those services. Right. So it’s, this is, I think, an even clearer aspect of pecuniary interest that then what happened in Remondis, when we talked about the simply a compensation for losses, right? So, that’s to add to that case, I’m not sure if I would recommend reading that case. I recommended it to you and I think you hated me for it…

 

Marta Andhov  24:17 

Ohhh, yeaaah. Yeah, no, I think that, you know, it’s great to have the source of knowledge of someone who really worked and sit and digested it, at least for me. I find it extremely difficult to follow this case. I think that it’s really problematic in the complexity level, if you will, not really really aware of how those things work to digest it. So, I think this is our added value, right?

 

Willem Janssen  24:52 

No, I don’t know if it’s…. let’s let the listeners decided for whatever we have to say today is added value.

 

Marta Andhov  24:59 

Well, I think for me, you know, for me, as your co host is listening to you explaining it and sort of breaking it down, it’s helpful to understand that much better than actually reading through the cases, the cases. It’s very complex. So, I think that at least you underline, you know, for us, what is the relationship to Remondis? And this question of whether we’re dealing with the same thing, or is it at different just payment type, right?

 

Willem Janssen  25:24 

Then I have a confession to make. I feel like I don’t understand this case.

 

Marta Andhov  25:31 

Then we all lost.

 

Willem Janssen  25:33 

We’re all lost. The ship is going down. Now, what I mean, is that I think what’s very difficult here is that it’s so closely related to the Finnish context, and that’s, of course, what this article is trying to allow for. On top of that, what makes it difficult is that it has these clear aspects of overlap with institutionalized cooperation, and with the award of a public contract. And I think that makes it very difficult, particularly because the court seems to be willing to allow for very specific circumstances, like in Remondis is: – Yeah, will allow political control, you can still be involved financially. – , and for those that are very interested in that financial involvement, I can also recommend reading the case of Commission v. Ireland, where there’s a cooperation between the Dublin City Council and the eastern Regional Health Authority, in which some financial authority involvement was still allowed. Now, this was not a transfer of competencies, but I think the court has kind of built upon that case to set up these these Remondis and on this Porin kaupunki case. I always feel bad pronouncing this word. But yeah, I think there’s more to come on this, this aspect. I don’t expect it to get easier, particularly with the intricacies that the court keeps adding to these cases, but let’s see. If I can convince you to if there’s ever a future future case, to talk about this again. So, to wrap it up, and but before we get to dessert, it’s really a matter of comparing article 1(6), to the award of public contract, there’s some discussions I think, or some clarity provided by the case law Remondis and this recent Finnish case, and it’s really a matter of defining financial and operational autonomy, and going from there and what actually fits in those aspects that ultimately relate to Article 4(2).

 

Marta Andhov  27:32 

So what what we thought was to discuss during our dessert time, so again, going back to a little bit lighter conversation, we tend to read a lot with our work cautiously. There’s a certain expectation of us to digest a large amount of text, and you come across very different styles of work and you like some of the written word better than others. So, we thought that we will introduce a concept to which we might come back in some future episodes, but is the books that we wish we wrote. So Willem, I would throw it at you. What is something that stands out in your memory as a book that you thought: -This is really good! I wish I wish I wrote it. –

 

Willem Janssen  28:23 

I don’t know if this obliges me to mention one of your edited volume or something. That aside, I wish I wrote all your work. No, it’s something outside of the context of public procurement because I find those books even though they can be very inspiring and and that but they are generally not groundbreaking, I find and I hope I’m not offending anyone, but but because you’re so involved in it yourself, you get inspired, there’s aspects that you think are this is totally well, different way of looking at it. But generally, I get the best ideas from books outside of our normal scope. For me, it’s Michael Sandel his book, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets,  and I think it still relates to public procurement, obviously, and how we see markets and how we construct them, right? I think why I find it so appealing to, I suppose his main argument is that we’ve drifted away from a market economy to a market society. One of the examples that he gives is that like, we can fast track at the airport, right? If you pay more, you get to go through quicker, right, in the time where we used to fly still. Or that you get better healthcare, if you can afford a private GP to take care of your family, and those I think, have very big implications. It also makes me think about public procurement and how governments influence influence market structures in in public procurement. So, in the last episode, you refer to the circular economy. Right, how we use public contracts to influence how public services ultimately are provided, I think also has a lasting effect on how we organize markets. I think why it stands out is because this book, like has an effect on how I look at normal life. So, I can’t buy those fast track tickets without having a thought about it. So, that would be my go to.

 

Marta Andhov  30:29 

So it is, in a way giving a soul to the markets or hearts to the markets and bit of societal approach. I think this is where we really always agreed on this. That’s our starting point to approach procurements very similar, right?  We sort of see it a little bit broader, particularly after the Lisbon Treaty. So, I approached this question totally different, to be honest. I am actually staying with a procurement law.

 

Willem Janssen  30:58 

You went for EU public procurement law and self-organization….

 

Marta Andhov  31:02 

Yes, they got the best book ever. No, this is really good book don’t get me wrong. But the book I would  mention today is a book also of a dear colleague, and dear friend, Abby Semple and she wrote a book A Practical Guide to Public Procurement that was published by Oxford in 2015. It was, I think, one of the first books on the new regime. But the reason why I really like, in general really enjoy Abbys writing. Why the book, I think, is really good? I think is because it fills out a certain gap on the market. I think majority of time when you find books on procurement, they are, as you mentioned, they’re quite complex, because they are addressed to highly specialized crowds. So, when you have the basis, you can really find the greedy, meaty issues. But I think what we were lacking on the market for procurement law was fairly straightforward book that someone you know, that works with, let’s say, contracting also, or your public authority can read through and get a little bit more legal understanding, even if they don’t have maybe legal background. The same way I find it actually quite helpful within teaching, because I think that she’s a great writer, she has a skill of writing fairly simply, in a simple language. I think that is also something probably to do that, you know, she’s a native speaker, and I always find that native speaker has this easiness in their writing. When for me, it always feels, you know, that you bleed and sweat, while you are writing. So, I really liked that book from that perspective, and also, besides that, she uses tons and tons of practical examples, which helps out I think, when you read and you want to see okay, but how this theory that how this concept go to practice. I don’t think that you know, for someone who who, again, is quite advanced, knows fair a bit on procurement, that you’re going to find a lot of new things that in itself, but I think for this entry point, I’m really, really grateful. I wish I could write like Abby with this likeness and simplicity. So great book.

 

Willem Janssen  33:27 

Good, good, good recommendation. I think, also something that maybe we’ll be exploring next year to see how we can also fill that gap of students starting classes, right, and that they’re swamped with a starting point- no knowledge about public procurement law, and then they need to start in this swamp with a field of law that they never imagined was so interesting, epic, and all those type of things, but also so broad in scope, right?

 

Marta Andhov  33:56 

yeah, and you know, I always go back to my own personal experience, the very first time I don’t mean like, within my master’s studies, but later on when I started my PhD, the very first book that I was given on procurement to really dive into was Arrowsmiths[3], you know, the “blue Bible”, the book that we all, I think, love to come back these days when you really know things because you find a real depth of all these different interest securities. But the very first time when I look at it, I felt that I will cry because I didn’t know you know, where to start, how to get an overview and so on. So different books, I think, for different purposes, right?

 

Willem Janssen  34:35 

Yep. For sure. Yeah. So if you haven’t read them, go check out these two books. I think they’re also recommendations, right?

 

Marta Andhov  34:43 

For sure. Let’s wrap it up.

 

Willem Janssen  34:51 

I think we’ll stay away from in-house for a little bit, to give you a breath, and then we’ll come back to it once you’ve recovered. So, you will see that the listeners will figure out once that moment has occurred and I can slip something in again. Thanks for listening again. This was Bestek, the public procurement podcast.

 

About Bestek  35:11 

This was Bestek, the public procurement podcast. Do you want to contribute to today’s discussion? Then share your thoughts on LinkedIn or Twitter. Do you have an idea for a future episode? Write to us at www.bestekpodcast.com

 

You might also be interested in Willem’s publication on this subject:

W.A. Janssen, EU Public Procurement Law & Self-organisation, 2018 (Chapter 4)

The books mentioned:

 

[1] Case C-51/15 Remondis GmbH & Co. KG Region Nord v Region Hannover

 (https://curia.europa.eu/juris/liste.jsf?num=C-51/15)

[2] Case C-328/19 (https://curia.europa.eu/juris/liste.jsf?language=en&td=ALL&num=C-328/19)

[3]Arrowsmith, S. (2021). Law of Public and Utilities Procurement (3rd edition). Sweet & Maxwell.

 

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