📃 REVIEW OF THE PUBLIC PROCUREMENT DIRECTIVE: WHAT IS THE ROLE OF ICT PROCUREMENT?

The European Commission has published an article on ICT procurement on the Big Buyers portal. The article addresses the planned review of the European Union’s 2014 Public Procurement Directives and focuses on the role that information and communication technology (ICT) procurement could play in this process. It notes that ICT procurement is a rapidly growing and strategically important field through which the public sector can influence sustainability, innovation, and Europe’s competitiveness. At the same time, the current procurement framework does not always sufficiently support these objectives, and contracting authorities often feel that the rules are too rigid or complex.

📊 Overview: public procurement challenges in 2025

The 2025 statistics provide a clear picture of the main trends and focal points in public procurement dispute practice.

📢 The ninth edition of Law Office Matteus’ Procurement Radar has been published – covering everything that has appeared on our public procurement radar.

✨ The first month of this year has been a busy one for VAKO and the courts. This issue of Procurement Radar brings you three judgments of the European Court of Justice, two circuit court decisions, one administrative court judgment, and 16 VAKO decisions, along with news on legislative amendments, reading and listening recommendations, and other interesting updates.

⚖️ The European Court of Justice clarified that different companies within the same group are separate tenderers rather than one single tenderer, and further specified how to interpret the calculation of activity percentages of a local authority or state-owned company under the in-house transaction provision. VAKO issued several decisions concerning abnormally low tenders.

🏆 In the fall, we always count our chickens, and Who's Who Legal released the results for this year's Government 2024 category on Friday. I'm very grateful to my clients and competitors for the recognition once again this year! :) "WWL: Government highlights the top lawyers worldwide for public procurement matters." The entire list provides a great overview of the top public procurement lawyers in Estonia. 👏

Read more: Who’s Who Legal: Government 2024 Rankings

But what exactly are lawyer rankings and recognitions like Who’s Who Legal, Legal500, and Chambers? These are legal ranking agencies that collect feedback from clients and market participants to determine who are the best lawyers and firms in their respective fields. While Legal500 and Chambers focus more on firm rankings (though Legal500 is increasingly rating individual lawyers as well), Who’s Who Legal specializes in evaluating individual lawyers, not firms.

In November 2023, I attended the Estonian Public Procurement Conference and presented an overview of the European Court of Justice and General Court decisions in the field of public procurement from the previous year. The annual conference is a good opportunity to see familiar faces, meet new ones, and stay informed about developments in the field.

While the European Court interprets procurement directives mainly through preliminary rulings (usually recognizable by the letter "C" in the decision), it is also worth keeping an eye on General Court decisions (starting with the letter "T"). Although the General Court resolves procurement disputes involving EU agencies under the financial regulation, the court has found that when the regulation is the same as in the directive, the Court of Justice's decisions on interpreting the directive are taken into account and vice versa.

Here are some key takeaways from this year's decisions made before November 1, 2023: