Competing Public Interests Concerning a Null and Void Public Procurement Contract

Abstract

This study focuses on the analysis of public interest. Without any particular academic verification, it is a plausible thought that public interest is the key issue behind public procurements. The procedure and operation of contracting entities principally presuppose the service of public interest. This present writing studies the system of legal remedies in the context of a civil law institution, the invalidity of contracts. Civil law literature regards public interest as the key issue behind the invalidity – particularly nullity – of a contract, namely when civil law applies the sanction of invalidation, and it acts in order to protect public interest. Those situations are under scrutiny in the study, in which various public interests are being assessed during the public procurement procedure, i.e. when the competition of public interests can be observed. In the Public Procurement Law, the latter occurs fundamentally when a contract is declared null and void as a result of infringing public procurement rules and during imposing interim measures. I study whether argumentations referring to different public interests can be compared with one another.