The Compliance Control of Negotiated Procedures without Prior Publication in Practice : The Background of Decreasing Statistical Data

Abstract

The compliance control of the application of negotiated procedures without prior publication is an activity of the Public Procurement Authority, where the Authority has a key role in influencing legal practice, furthermore, its option to initiate a review procedure has a considerable impact on drawing the borderline of the application of this procedure type. The number and ratio of negotiated procedures without prior publication has been lowering for years among the procedures launched by contracting authorities, likewise the transparency of Hungarian public procurements has markedly improved, which beside the legislation is also attributable to the fact that the Public Procurement Authority focuses in particular on ensuring the publicity of procedure documents and the decisions made as a result of the control. As the possibility offered by negotiated procedures without prior publication is indispensable for the satisfaction of certain procurement needs, consequently, in addition to strict compliance control, the establishment of a consistent legal practice is also necessary to implement this procedure type in the spirit in which it was conceived. The overview of past years’ legislative and practical tendencies in terms of negotiated procedures without prior publication presented by this article endeavours to analyse the background of decreasing statistical data and also to describe how the Public Procurement Authority ensures transparency during compliance control and how it supports practitioners in applying this procedure type in compliance with the provisions of the Public Procurement Act.