The chief claim to fame of the Italian municipality of Sulmona was that it was the birthplace of Ovid. Moving from Roman times to now, and from poetry to prose, and indigestible prose at that, it is now the subject of a Judgment of the ECJ on 8 December 2016 in Undis Servizi Srl v Comune di Sulmona, Case C-553/15.

The case concerns the award of a public contract, to Gogesa Spa, without any public tendering procedure, on the basis that it was an “in-house” award. That exemption is of course subject to two conditions, first that the local authority exercises over the contractor control similar to that which it exercises over its own departments, and, second, that the contractor carries out the “essential part of its activities” with the authority or authorities to which it belongs, the two Teckal conditions.

By decision of 30 September 2014, the municipal council of the Municipality of Sulmona awarded the contract for management of the integrated cycle of municipal waste to Cogesa, a wholly public capital company owned by several municipalities of the Regione Abruzzo (Abruzzo Region, Italy), including the Municipality of Sulmona. The latter holds 200 shares out of the 1,200 representing the company’s total share capital, that is to say, a holding of approximately 16.6% of that capital.

On 30 October 2014, although the contract for services with Cogesa had not yet been concluded, the local authorities with shares in Cogesa entered into an agreement to exercise jointly over that body a control similar to that exercised over their own departments (“the Agreement of 30 October 2014”).

By Integrated Environmental Authorisation No 9/11, the Abruzzo Region required Cogesa, in accordance with the principles of self-sufficiency, proximity and subsidiarity, to treat and recover the urban waste of certain municipalities of that region which were not shareholders of that company.

Undis, a company with an interest in the contract for services at issue, brought proceedings against the decision to award that contract for services and against the decision approving the inter-municipal agreement project. Undis claimed that the two conditions required for that contract of services to be awarded on an “in-house” basis had not been met.

More specifically, Undis claimed that the condition requiring the contracting authority to exercise over the successful tenderer, legally separate from that authority, control similar to that which it exercises over its own departments had not been met. It argues that the Municipality of Sulmona is a minority shareholder of Cogesa, that the Agreement of 30 October 2014 was entered into after the decision to award the contract for services at issue, and that that company’s statute confers on the company’s constituent bodies a degree of independence incompatible with the concept of ‘similar control’. Undis added that the condition requiring the successful tenderer to perform the essential part of its activities with the contracting authority or authorities had also not been met. According to Undis, Cogesa’s financial statements covering the years 2011 to 2013 indicated that only 50% of its overall activity had been performed with shareholder local authorities, given that activities carried out for the benefit of non-shareholder municipalities had to be included in that overall activity.

The Italian Court referred the following questions to the ECJ for a preliminary ruling:-

(1)      When the essential activity undertaken by the controlled body is assessed, must an activity imposed on it by a non-shareholder public administration and undertaken in favour of non-shareholder public bodies also be taken into account?

(2)      When the essential activity undertaken by the controlled body is assessed, must the contracts awarded to shareholder public bodies before the requirement of similar control became applicable also be taken into account?

On the first question, the ECJ said:-

“In accordance with the case-law of the Court, the main objective of the rules of EU law in the field of public contracts, namely the free movement of goods and services and the opening-up of undistorted competition in all the Member States, implies the obligation to apply the rules regarding the procedures for the award of public contracts provided for by the relevant directives, where a contracting authority, such as a local authority, is planning to enter into a written contract for pecuniary interest with a separate legal body, whether or not that body is itself a contracting authority (see, to that effect, judgments of 18 November 1999, Teckal, C‑107/98, EU:C:1999:562, paragraph 51, and of 11 January 2005, Stadt Halle and RPL Lochau, C‑26/03, EU:C:2005:5, paragraphs 44 and 47).

The Court has emphasised that any exception to the application of that obligation must be interpreted strictly (judgments of 11 January 2005, Stadt Halle and RPL Lochau, C‑26/03, EU:C:2005:5, paragraph 46, and of 8 May 2014, Datenlotsen Informationssysteme, C‑15/13, EU:C:2014:303, paragraph 23).

Given that a public authority has the possibility of performing the tasks conferred on it in the public interest by using its own administrative, technical and other resources, without being obliged to call on outside entities not forming part of its own departments (see, to that effect, judgment of 11 January 2005, Stadt Halle and RPL Lochau, C‑26/03, EU:C:2005:5, paragraph 48), the Court justified the recognition of the exception for so-called ‘in-house’ awards, by the existence, in such a case, of a specific internal link between the contracting authority and the contractor, even if the latter is an entirely separate legal entity (see, to that effect, judgment of 8 May 2014, Datenlotsen Informationssysteme, C‑15/13, EU:C:2014:303, paragraph 29). In such cases, it may be considered that the contracting authority, in actual fact, uses its own resources (see, to that effect, judgment of 8 May 2014, Datenlotsen Informationssysteme, C‑15/13, EU:C:2014:303, paragraph 25) and that the contractor is almost part of its internal departments.

That exception requires, in addition to the contracting authority exercising over the contractor a control similar to that which it exercises over its own departments, that that contractor performs the essential part of its activities for the benefit of the contracting authority or authorities which control it (see, to that effect, judgment of 18 November 1999, Teckal, C‑107/98, EU:C:1999:562, paragraph 50).

Thus, it is essential that the contractor’s activity be principally devoted to the controlling authority or authorities; the nature of any other activity may only be marginal. In order to determine whether that is the case, the court having jurisdiction must take into account all the facts of the case, both qualitative and quantitative. In that regard, the relevant turnover is the turnover that that contractor achieves pursuant to the award decisions taken by that or those controlling authorities (see, to that effect, judgments of 11 May 2006, Carbotermo and Consorzio Alisei, C‑340/04, EU:C:2006:308, paragraphs 63 and 65, and of 17 July 2008, Commission v Italy, C‑371/05, not published, EU:C:2008:410, paragraph 31).

The requirement that the person at issue performs the essential part of its activities with the controlling authority or authorities is designed to ensure that Directive 2004/18 remains applicable in the event that an undertaking controlled by one or more authorities is active in the market, and therefore liable to be in competition with other undertakings. An undertaking is not necessarily deprived of freedom of action merely because the decisions concerning it are controlled by the controlling municipal authority or authorities, if it can still carry out a large part of its economic activities with other operators. By contrast, where that undertaking’s services are mostly intended for that authority or those authorities alone, it seems justified that that undertaking should not be subject to the restrictions of Directive 2004/18, since they are in place to preserve a state of competition which, in that case, no longer has any raison d’être (see, by analogy, judgment of 11 May 2006, Carbotermo and Consorzio Alisei, C‑340/04, EU:C:2006:308, paragraphs 60 to 62).

It follows from that case-law that any activity of the contractor which is devoted to persons other than those which control it, namely persons without any relationship of control in regard to that entity, including public authorities, must be regarded as being carried out for the benefit of a third party.

Consequently, in the light of that case-law, in the dispute in the main proceedings, the local authorities which are not shareholders of Cogesa must be regarded as third parties. According to the information in the decision to refer, there is no control relationship between those local authorities and that company, with the result that the specific internal link between the contracting authority and the contractor, which according to the case-law of the Court justifies the exception for “in-house” awards, is lacking.

Therefore, in order to determine whether Cogesa performs the essential part of its activity with the local authorities which control it, the activity which that company devotes to non-shareholder local authorities must be regarded as being carried out for the benefit of third parties. It is for the referring court to examine whether that latter activity can be regarded as merely marginal in comparison with the activity of Cogesa with the controlling local authorities, in accordance with the Court’s case-law on so-called “in-house” awards.

That finding cannot be invalidated by the fact, mentioned by the referring court, that Cogesa’s activity carried out for the benefit of the non-shareholder local authorities is imposed by a public authority, which is also not a shareholder of that company. Although it imposed that activity upon Cogesa, it is apparent from the information in the decision to refer that that public authority is not a shareholder of that company and does not exercise any control over it within the meaning of the Court’s case-law on so-called ‘in-house’ awards. In the absence of any control by that public authority, the activity which it imposes on Cogesa must be regarded as an activity carried out for third parties.”

On the second question, the ECJ said:-

“By this question, the referring court asks in essence whether, for the purpose of determining whether the contractor performs the essential part of its activity for the shareholder local authorities which jointly exercise over it control similar to that which they exercise over their own departments, the activity of that contractor performed for those local authorities before such joint control took effect must also be taken into account.

In that regard, it must be noted that, according to the case-law of the Court, in order to assess the condition concerning the performance of the essential part of the activity, the national courts must take into account all the facts of the case, both qualitative and quantitative (see, to that effect, judgment of 11 May 2006, Carbotermo and Consorzio Alisei, C‑340/04, EU:C:2006:308, paragraphs 63 and 64).

In the present case, it follows from the information in the decision to refer that Cogesa had already carried out activities for the local authorities which control it prior to the conclusion of the Agreement of 30 October 2014. Those activities must certainly be taken into consideration when they are still in existence at the time of the award of a public contract. Furthermore, activities completed before 30 October 2014 may also be relevant for the purpose of assessing whether the condition concerning the performance of the essential part of the activity is met. Past activities may be indicative of the importance of the activity that Cogesa is planning to carry out for its shareholder local authorities after their similar control has taken effect.

In the light of the foregoing, for the purpose of determining whether the contractor carries out the essential part of its activity for the shareholder local authorities which jointly exercise over it control similar to that which they exercise over their own departments, account must be taken of all the circumstances of the case, which may include the activity carried out by that contractor for those local authorities before such joint control took effect.”

The ECJ ruled as follows:-

“In the context of the application of the Court’s case-law on direct awards of so-called “in-house” public contracts, in order to determine whether the contractor carries out the essential part of its activity for the contracting authority, including local authorities which are its controlling shareholders, an activity imposed on that contractor by a non-shareholder public authority for the benefit of local authorities which are also not shareholders of that contractor and do not exercise any control over it must not be taken into account, since that activity must be regarded as being carried out for third parties.

For the purpose of determining whether the contractor carries out the essential part of its activity for the shareholder local authorities which jointly exercise over it control similar to that which they exercise over their own departments, account must be taken of all the circumstances of the case, which may include activity carried out by that contractor for those local authorities before such joint control took

Case C-298/15, UAB “Borta”, in which Advocate General Sharpston gave her Opinion to the CJEU on 1 December 2016, concerns a tender specification for the award of a public works contract for constructing a quay at the port of Klaipėda (Lithuania). The specification in question contains provisions governing tenders submitted by joint-activity partners. These require each partner to perform a proportion of the contract equivalent to its contribution to establishing the partnership’s professional experience, at the level of the award of the public contract.

The Lithuanian Court asked whether EU law precluded a provision, such as Article 24(5) of the Lithuanian law on public procurement, referred to in the specification, which required that, in the case of public works contracts, the tenderer should itself carry out the “main work”, as identified by the contracting authority.

Advocate General Sharpston said:-

“43.    According to settled case-law, Articles 49 and 56 TFEU preclude any national measure which, even though it is applicable without discrimination on grounds of nationality, is liable to prohibit, impede or render less attractive the exercise by nationals of the European Union of the freedom of establishment and the freedom to provide services guaranteed by those provisions.

44. As regards public contracts and the freedom of establishment and the freedom to provide services, the European Union is concerned to ensure the widest possible participation by tenderers in a call for tenders, even where directives on public procurement are not applicable.

That is in the interest of the contracting authority itself, which will thus have greater choice as to the most advantageous tender which is most suitable for its needs.

One of the principal functions of the principle of the equal treatment of tenderers and the corollary obligation of transparency is thus to ensure the free movement of services and the opening-up of undistorted competition in all the Member States.

45. Subcontracting contributes to those objectives as it is likely to encourage small and medium-sized undertakings to get involved in the public contracts procurement market and therefore to increase the number of potential candidates for the award of public contracts.
46. In the present case, a provision such as Article 24(5) of the Law on public procurement clearly limits the possibility for undertakings established in other Member States to exercise their rights under Articles 49 and 56 TFEU, in so far as it precludes them, if they tender for the contract, from either subcontracting all or part of ‘the main work’ as defined by the contracting authority or proposing their own services as subcontractors for that part of the contract. As the Commission correctly submits, Article 24(5) of the Law on public procurement therefore restricts the freedom to provide services and the freedom of establishment.
47. However, such a restriction may be justified in so far as it pursues a legitimate objective in the public interest, and to the extent that it complies with the principle of proportionality in that it is suitable for securing the attainment of that objective and does not go beyond what is necessary in order to attain it.”

“49.   A contracting authority may legitimately seek to ensure that a public work contract will be effectively and properly carried out.

That applies in particular where the works in question are deemed necessary for safeguarding national security, which, according to Article 4(2) TEU, is among the essential State functions that the European Union must respect.

Thus, a tenderer may be required to produce evidence that it actually has available to it the resources of the entities or undertakings on which it relies, which it does not itself own, and which are necessary for the performance of the contract.

Accordingly, the contracting authority is entitled to prohibit the use of subcontractors whose capacities could not be verified during the examination of tenders and selection of the contractor for the performance of essential parts of the contract.

50. However, the restriction on the freedom to provide services and freedom of establishment that Article 24(5) of the Law on public procurement involves does not appear proportionate to that objective.
51. First, that restriction applies even where the contracting authority is in fact in a position to verify the technical and economic capacity of subcontractors during the contract award procedure. An alternative to that restriction would (for example) have been to require the main contractor to identify subcontractors when submitting his tender and to demonstrate both that he will actually have available to him the resources of those subcontractors necessary for the performance of the contract and that those subcontractors are suitable for carrying out the tasks he intends to entrust to them.
52. Second, Article 24(5) is also both too rigid and too vague to satisfy the proportionality test. Although contracting authorities appear to enjoy flexibility when defining, for each contract, what ‘the main work’ is, the restriction on subcontracting resulting from that provision is defined in particularly broad terms. It applies regardless of the subject matter of the public works contract and is binding upon contracting authorities when they conclude any type of public works contract, even when they may consider that there is no obvious reason for imposing such a restriction at all.
53. As the Commission submits, the restriction on subcontracting in Article 24(5) of the Law on public procurement differs in that regard from Article 79(3) of Directive 2014/25. That provision merely enables a contracting authority, in particular, to require that certain critical tasks be performed directly by the tenderer itself. Contracting authorities may thus assess whether such a limitation is opportune, depending on the circumstances. It follows that, even if, as the Lithuanian Government submits, Article 24(5) of the Law on public procurement were to be regarded as transposing Article 79(3) of Directive 2014/25 into Lithuanian law, that transposition would be incorrect.”

“57.   The principles that I have set out above regarding subcontracting are equally relevant to joint-activity partners pooling their capacities.

58. As I see it, a requirement such as that laid down in paragraph 4.3 of the tender specifications is liable to limit the flexibility of joint-activity partners. It not only affects how they agree to share responsibilities at the time of submitting their common tender but also precludes them from modifying each partner’s contribution to the works contract at a later stage if the contract is attributed to them.
59. Thus, the requirement in paragraph 4.3 of the tender specifications is capable of having a dissuasive effect on economic operators established in other Member States. It will affect operators wishing to establish themselves in the Member State concerned through the establishment of a permanent consortium, possibly composed of national and foreign companies. It will also affect operators wishing to offer their services by joining consortia of that kind already in existence, in order to be able to participate more easily in public tendering procedures launched by the contracting authorities of that Member State.

Such specification therefore constitutes a restriction within the meaning of Articles 49 and 56 TFEU.”

“61.   I have already indicated that the objective of ensuring proper performance of a public contract can justify a (non-discriminatory) restriction to the freedom to provide services and freedom of establishment.

Partners acting under a joint-activity agreement may be able to satisfy collectively the condition(s) relating to professional capacity (including professional experience) stipulated by the contracting authority when they submit a tender. That however offers no guarantee that each partner will then actually be entrusted with those specific tasks for which its professional capacity has been verified prior to the award of that contract. Articles 49 and 56 TFEU do not therefore in principle preclude a contracting authority from requiring tenders submitted under joint-activity agreements to specify how the various tasks will be distributed among the partners, from verifying the capacity of each partner to carry out the tasks for which it will be responsible and from monitoring that, following the award of the contract, each partner duly performs those tasks for which its professional capacity has been demonstrated.

62. However, paragraph 4.3 of the tender specifications at issue here is not suitable for ensuring attainment of that objective.
63. That paragraph requires there to be an arithmetic correspondence between the contribution of each partner to the professional experience requirement in paragraph 3.2.1 and the ‘volume’ (or money value) of tasks effectively carried out by that partner when performing the contract.
64. As the Commission correctly submits, that specification is unrelated to the specific works or services required to perform the public contract at issue properly. For example, each partner under a joint-activity agreement might be able to demonstrate that it has acquired experience in seaport quay construction or reconstruction over the last 5 years. Collectively, the partners thus fulfil the professional experience requirement in paragraph 3.2.1 of the tender specifications. However, each of them might specialise in a different aspect of seaport quay construction, such as dredging harbour basins, laying foundation works, building grooved steel walls, or supplying and installing seaport quay equipment. The requirement set out in paragraph 4.3 does not preclude an individual partner from carrying out specific tasks for which it actually has no such experience (although, in arithmetical terms, those tasks might correspond to its contribution in fulfilling the requirement in paragraph 3.2.1 of the tender specifications and thus comply with paragraph 4.3 thereof).
65. I therefore consider that the objective of ensuring proper performance of the public contract cannot, in a situation such as that in the main proceedings, justify the restriction on freedom to provide services and freedom of establishment which results from paragraph 4.3 of the tender specifications. That is all the more the case since even tasks which represent a small proportion of the total value of the contract may be critical to its proper performance.”

“69.    Did the principles of equal treatment and of non-discrimination on grounds of nationality flowing from Articles 49 and 56 TFEU, and the consequent obligation of transparency, preclude the Seaport Authority from modifying clause 4.3 of the tender specifications as it did?

70. The Court’s case-law interpreting Article 2 of Directive 2004/18 offers useful guidance to answer that question. According to that provision, ‘contracting authorities shall treat economic operators equally and non-discriminatorily, and shall act in a transparent way’. That provision is therefore based on the principles of equal treatment and non-discrimination and the obligation of transparency which arise from the TFEU.
71. Thus, the Court has held 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.

Equal treatment requires tenderers to be afforded equality of opportunity when formulating their bids. That implies that the bids of all tenderers must be subject to the same conditions.

Furthermore, the obligation of transparency is intended to preclude any risk of favouritism or arbitrariness on the part of the contracting authority. It means that all the conditions and detailed rules of the award procedure must be drawn up in a clear, precise and unequivocal manner in the contract notice or specifications so that, first, all reasonably informed tenderers exercising ordinary care can understand their exact significance and interpret them in the same way and, second, the contracting authority is able to ascertain whether the bids submitted satisfy the criteria applying to the contract in question.

72. Therefore, a contracting authority cannot, even by means of corrections, change the meaning of the essential contractual conditions as they were formulated in the specifications, upon which the economic operators concerned legitimately relied in taking the decision to prepare to submit a tender or, on the other hand, not to participate in the procurement procedure concerned.
73. The same principles apply where a contract not governed by Directive 2004/18 has a clear cross-border interest. …”

“78.    In the circumstances of the present case, I … conclude that the prohibition on discrimination on the grounds of nationality and the obligation of transparency which flow from Articles 49 and 56 TFEU preclude changes of the tender specifications such as those at issue in the main proceedings, which introduce restrictions concerning the demonstration of professional capacity by joint-activity partners that were plainly not included in the original version of the specifications.

79. That conclusion is not called into question by the fact that the changes took place before any tender was submitted or by the fact that the Seaport Authority both published the changes in the Official Journal of the European Union and extended the deadline for submitting tenders. As I have explained, the successive amendments of paragraph 4.3 of the tender specifications by the Seaport Authority entailed an essential modification of the conditions under which a tender could be submitted by joint‑activity partners, without objective justification.
80. Finally, I would emphasise that the analysis I offer here flows from the specific situation in the main proceedings. It therefore does not in any way prejudge how the principles of equal treatment and non-discrimination and the obligation of transparency arising from the TFEU would apply in different circumstances.”

The Advocate General’s Opinion on 1 December 2016 in Case C-296/15, Medisanus v Murska Sobota, restates the requirement for contracting authorities to treat economic operators equally and non-discriminatorily. The Advocate General said:-

“76.    Under Article 2 of Directive 2004/18, the contracting authorities are required to treat economic operators equally and non-discriminatorily.

77. According to the Court’s case-law, in application of the principle of equal treatment as between tenderers, the aim of which is to promote the development of healthy and effective competition between undertakings taking part in a public procurement procedure, all tenderers must be afforded equality of opportunity when formulating their tenders, which therefore implies that the tenders of all competitors must be subject to the same conditions.
78. Strictly speaking, the national origin requirement distinguishes not between economic operators but between products, by excluding medicinal products not manufactured on the basis of Slovenian plasma.
79. Nonetheless, it has consistently been held that the principle of equal treatment, of which Article 2 of that directive is a particular expression, prohibits not only overt discrimination based on nationality but also all covert forms of discrimination which, by applying other distinguishing criteria, in fact achieve the same result.
80. A clause requiring that a medicinal product be manufactured on the basis of plasma collected in the national territory is liable to operate mainly to the detriment of economic operators of other Member States, since they will find it more difficult to have access to plasma collected in the national territory than the economic operators of the Member State concerned.
81. In the circumstances of the main proceedings, the discriminatory effects of that national origin requirement are all the more apparent because the ZTM, a Slovenian body, is in practice the only economic operator capable of supplying medicinal products manufactured on the basis of Slovenian plasma, which precludes all operators in other Member States.
82. I conclude from the foregoing that Article 2 of Directive 2004/18 of Directive 2004/18 must be interpreted as meaning that it precludes the national origin requirement.”

The national origin requirement was also contrary to Article 34 TFEU, as was a priority supply requirement.

The Advocate General also stated that the Hamburg Waste exemption was not applicable.  The Advocate General said:-

“72.    That judgment concerned a contract concluded for a period of 20 years between the City of Hamburg (Germany) and four Landkreise, for the purpose of establishing long-term cooperation between those local authorities for reciprocal treatment of waste. Thus, that contract, which had been concluded without launching a call for tenders, formed both the basis and the legal framework for the future construction and operation of facility intended to perform a public service, namely thermal incineration of waste. The Court held that such a contract was not required to be the subject matter of a prior call for tenders.

73. Admittedly, the circumstances of the main proceedings bear certain resemblances to those of the judgment in Commission v Germany, and in particular the public nature of the contracting parties, namely Murska Sobota general hospital and the ZTM. However, in that judgment it was not the Court’s intention to exclude all contracts between public entities from the rules applicable to public contracts, but only those forming both the basis and the legal framework for long-term co-operation with the intention of carrying out a public service. That is not the case of the contract at issue in the main proceedings, the object of which is limited to the occasional supply of medicinal products manufactured on the basis of human plasma.
74. Consequently, I consider that the contract at issue in the main proceedings does not come within the exception established by the Court in the judgment in Commission v Germany.”