Law on Public Procurement extends Anti-monopoly Committee's remit - International Law Office

On July 30 2010 the Law on Public Procurement came into force, introducing new rules to make public procurement procedures non-discriminatory and more transparent. The thresholds for applying the public procurement mechanism remain at the previous levels of UAH100,000 for goods and services and UAH300,000 for works.

The law sets out new duties for the Anti-monopoly Committee, which is now authorised to review disputes arising out of public procurement procedures - previously, tender participants addressed their appeals to the Ministry of the Economy or to the tender organiser directly. The committee is required to create a new department that will specialise in dispute resolution and has been authorised to recruit up to 35 new staff. Ten new employees have already been delegated from the ministry.

All natural and legal persons can approach the committee if they consider that their rights or interests were violated during a public procurement process. The committee predicts an increase in the number of such disputes in light of the wide range of interested parties with such a right. Within three days of receiving the appeal, the committee must notify the state entity of the time and place of the hearing. The period for considering an appeal has been extended from 20 to 30 business days.

The committee's chairman is determined to maintain its good public profile despite this challenging new area of competence and the negative image of Ukrainian public procurement in competition terms.

For further information on this topic please contact Oleh Malskyy at Astapov Lawyers International Law Group by telephone (+380 44 490 70 01), fax (+380 44 490 70 02) or email (malskyy@astapovlawyers.com).