Conference: The Public Sector Contract Law 6 months after its application

On 9 November 2017, the Law 9/2017 of 8 November on Public Sector Contracts was published in the Official State Gazette, which transposes the Directives of the European Parliament and of the Council 2014/23/EU and 2014/24/EU, of 26 February 2014, which established its entry into force —with some minor exceptions— 4 months after its publication, that is, on 9 March. The Law has been, therefore, applied for six months. In these six months the Law has undergone two modifications, and a minimal and incipient regulatory update.

An Autonomous Community has approved its own Contract Law, and another has announced that it will file an appeal for unconstitutionality against more than a hundred articles of the State Law. If it were interposed, it would be the second, since last March the Constitutional Court admitted the unconstitutionality appeal No. 739-2018, filed by more than fifty deputies against various articles and provisions of the Law. During these months, actions have been developed for the implementation of the new administrative organization for the management of contracting, and for the application of the new criteria.

In the same way, the first administrative and judicial resolutions have begun to be produced on a crucial issue in the Law, namely, the subrogation of personnel, which are closing some of the conflicting issues in that area. At the same time, tender and award procedures have begun to be processed in accordance with the Law, generating new experiences for contracting bodies and private contractors, which have sometimes required the intervention of specific advisory bodies on contracting, and even from the courts of justice.

These are experiences that private companies should follow very closely, both to know how to best offer their products and services, and how to act correctly and exercise their rights optimally in the procedures for preparing and awarding contracts and in the remedies provided against administrative acts dictated in those procedures. The purpose of this conference is to offer attendees an update of the public procurement regime in Spain, six months after the entry into force of the Public Sector Contract Law, with a fundamentally practical perspective.