Enforcement of public procurement regulations
NHH Professor Malin Arve and the rest of the Procurement Committee delivered their second report on public procurement in May.
When the Procurement Committee was appointed in November 2022, led by Halvard Haukeland Fredriksen, it was tasked with reviewing the public procurement regulations and proposing changes.
More enforcement before contract signing
`When we have a set of regulations that are so bureaucratic that it requires a guide of over 350 pages to understand, it’s clear that we’re on the wrong track,´said former Minister of Trade and Industry, Jan Christian Vestre.
The first interim report was presented in November 2023. In this report, the Procurement Committee proposed, among other things, a new structure for the procurement regulations and clear requirements for green transition and social sustainability.
In May 2024, it was Minister of Trade and Industry Cecilie Myrseth who received the report from the Procurement Committee. In this report, the committee members address, among other topics, the enforcement of procurement regulations and the division of responsibilities between KOFA (Norwegian Public Procurement Complaints Board) and the Norwegian Competition Authority.
The committee proposes changing the current enforcement system by shifting the focus towards the pre-contractual phase, meaning before the parties enter into a binding agreement.
`This will reduce the need for compensation claims after the fact. The committee believes it is important to find solutions that also ensure small and medium-sized suppliers have real opportunities to halt a contract award and receive a decision that requires the contracting authority to correct any errors so that the contract can be awarded to the correct supplier,´ says Malin Arve.
This would also reduce the need for large compensation amounts, which can significantly impact the budgets of state agencies and municipalities.
Arve is a professor at the Department of Business and Management Science and Vice Rector for Research at NHH. She is a member of the committee, which includes several legal and economic experts. NHO, LO and KS have had representatives on the committee.