Council Tax and Public Procurement

May 14th, 2012 by James Goudie KC

COUNCIL TAX

In Harrow LBC v Ayiku [2012] EWHC 1200 (Admin) Sales J held that the word “or” in the Council Tax (Exempt Dwellings) Order 1992, art 3 Class N, had a disjunctive meaning, therefore it was sufficient for the non-British spouse of a foreign student to satisfy one or other of the two conditions, namely being prevented from taking paid employment or being prevented from claiming benefits, in order to qualify as a “relevant person” who was exempted from liability to pay council tax.

PUBLIC PROCUREMENT

In Case C-368/10, Commission v Netherlands, Decision on 10 May 2012, the ECJ has reaffirmed, in the context of the supply to and management for a public authority of automatic coffee machines, that “both the principle of equal treatment and the obligation of transparency which flows from it require the subject-matter of each contract and the criteria governing its award to be clearly defined from the beginning of the award procedure … the formulation of the award criteria being such as to allow all reasonably well-informed tenderers exercising ordinary care to know the exact scope thereof and thus to interpret them in the same way”.

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