My new paper about direct awards in Portugal is out

This happened last week but completely forgot to mention it here. My most recent paper about the use of direct awards (negotiated procedure without notice) in Portugal is out in the newest number of the e-Publica journal. Here's the abstract:

The Portuguese Revised Public Contracts Code misses an opportunity to change the paradigm of how public contracts valued at below EU thresholds are awarded. This paper argues that the changes for low value contracts, where the direct award was replaced for some contracts by the prior consultation procedure (request for quotes) amount to little more than window dressing. This is problematic since 90.2% of all public contracts in Portugal are awarded via direct award, meaning 47.9% all public procurement expenditure is not subject to transparency. As the lack of transparency in low value public contracts is associated with procurement risks such as corruption, strategic behaviour by contracting authorities and bidders or lack of accountability, it is apparent the recent public procurement reform did not really address the behaviours behind these risks.

Portugal could have instead improved transparency in low value contracts by adapting already existing provisions within its legal framework, or following the footsteps of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (England and Wales) and the Draft Public Sector Contracts Law (Spain) which introduced significant transparency reforms for low value contracts. Although, there is room for improvement on these, either solution would have provided a marked improvement in the regulation of low value public contracts in Portugal.

The full PDF is available on the usual place (SSRN) but also on the e-Publica website as well.