Links I Liked [Public Procurement]

1. What public procurement documents need to be published upfront? Myself and Albert have dabbed on this in the past, but the problem should have been solved directly in the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. But hey, as usual "it's the Directive's fault for not being clear so let's publish some guidance."

2. Oppex.com raises boatload of cash ($2.3M) for its tender search engine. I welcome any and every startup working in public procurement but on this case I struggle to see what is the winning proposition of Oppex so far. Yes, they aggregate data that is already publicly available, but that is pretty much it as far as I can tell. There is some value on it for potential customers, but not much. Oppex can provide a lot more value to however if it moves from simply aggregating contract notice data and building instead some sort of intelligence/analytics about existing contracts into their platform like SpendNetwork does.

3. Negotiation skills matter in public procurement. They do, but unfortunately the system is not geared up (yet) to foster those skills in procurement officers. Brownie points for the picture with my former boss.

4. CJEU confirms its jurisdiction to review procurement decisions linked to EU's external action (C‑439/13 P). Albert never allows a public procurement judgment to go uncommented.

5. EU Commission puts out some public procurement guidance to help practitioners involved in projects funded by European Structural and Investment Funds. Helpful, but now imagine how life would be if only all EU funding programmes used the same rules and approach to public procurement and audit reporting...