Success of the Law Firm – Revocation of the decision of the first instance authority and discontinuation of the first instance proceedings in their entiret

When conducting an audit of public procurement procedures in the form of open tenders organised in each of the projects, the authority found individual irregularities in each of them. In the opinion of the authority, the beneficiary committed a violation in the selection of the most advantageous tender and made changes to the provisions of the contracts concluded for the procurement.

As a result, the authority imposed financial corrections on the Client in each of the two projects, for a total amount of almost 4 million PLN.

In the opinion of the authority, the beneficiary – the Client of the Law Firm – committed a breach of law, which consisted in:

• failing to request the completion or, where necessary, clarification of the list of persons and the European Single Procurement Document (ESPD) with regard to the experience of the persons assigned to perform the contract;
• violating the provisions by extending the deadline for the performance of the contract with the selected contractor by Annex 1 to the contract, even though the contract provided for an extension of its term for reasons beyond the control of the contractor and the contracting authority.

The Authority also found that by not rejecting the tender received, even though it was the only tender and, moreover, had been submitted correctly, the beneficiary limited the range of entities with more advantageous tenders and thus caused potential damage to the EU budget by financing unjustified expenditure.

In the appeal proceedings, the client emphasised that the analysis and attempt to find legal grounds for determining the amount of the financial correction leads to the conclusion that the finding of irregularities and subsequently the request for repayment of part of the grant was based on an incorrect legal situation and incorrect facts and was not preceded by a detailed analysis of all the circumstances of the case.

The appeal body agreed with the beneficiary that the evaluation of the tender submitted was carried out correctly and in accordance with the rules adopted. Furthermore, the beneficiary’s action was entirely correct, as in the event of an extension of the deadline for the evaluation of the grant application, the beneficiary was actually obliged to re-determine a realistic deadline for the performance of the contract and to make appropriate changes to its content.