Preliminary communication
https://doi.org/10.31297/hkju.17.3.6
Public Procurement of Legal Services in Croatia
Mirna Vlahović
orcid.org/0000-0001-6573-2016
; (doctoral student of commercial and company law at the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, Croatia
Jelena Arambašić
; (doctoral student of commercial and company law at the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The paper attempts to present the characteristics of the legal framework governing the public procurement of legal services in Croatia, with a particular view to the processes at the disposal of public and sector contracting authorities. The first part of the paper analyses the provisions of the new Public Procurement Act (Official Gazette 120/16), which apply to the public procurement of legal services in Croatia, and compares these with the legal framework effective until the end of 2016. Because both laws have been harmonised with EU directives, the paper also sets forth the most significant modifications to the public procurement of legal services at EU level. In addition, the paper investigates where the Directorate for the Public Procurement System, the Constitutional Court of Croatia, and the Croatian Bar Association stand with regard to the public procurement of legal services. The previous act governing the public procurement of legal services included the option of the so-called ‘particular procedure’. The new law does not include this option; however, it retains the option of negotiated procedure without prior publication of the contract notice. An analysis of the provisions of the two acts demonstrates that there is no difference between the two types of procedure, which indicates that public and sector contracting entities still have at their disposal the option of conducting a highly non-transparent public procurement process when it comes to legal services. The explanation provided is that these services are specific, and as such are less suited to regular public procurement processes. The second part of the paper presents the statistical analysis results regarding the public procurement of legal services in the period 2012–2016. The aim is to determine process transparency and concentration level in this period; i.e., the level of competition on the market for the public procurement of legal services. In 95% of the cases, the contracting authorities decided to conduct
the least transparent process. In the three years under observation a low level of competition was observed, while in two years an oligopoly was observed on the market for the public procurement of legal services.
Keywords
public procurement; legal services; market competition; concentration; transparency
Hrčak ID:
187197
URI
Publication date:
4.9.2017.
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