Debarment in Public Procurement: Rationales and Realization

Published as a chapter in G. M. Racca and C. Yukins. 2014. Integrity and Efficiency in Sustainable Public Contracts. Bruylant. Uploaded with permission from editors.

University of Oslo Faculty of Law Research Paper No. 2014-32

16 Pages Posted: 7 Jul 2014 Last revised: 25 Aug 2014

See all articles by Erling Hjelmeng

Erling Hjelmeng

University of Oslo - Department of Private Law

Tina Søreide

Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI); University of Bergen, Faculty of Law

Date Written: July 6, 2014

Abstract

As a consequence of being found guilty in corruption, fraud and some other offences, firms and individuals can be debarred from participating in future public tenders. Such consequences will not only reduce governments’ risk of entering into contracts with corrupt or in other ways dishonest suppliers, but may also have a preventive impact on players’ propensity to be involved in certain offences in the first place. While debarment has gained significant terrain in the last decade, particularly as a device in the fight against corruption, the rules differ across jurisdictions and international organizations. There seems to be uncertainty in policy environments about what optimal solutions should look like: Who should be debarred, and under what circumstances? For how long should they be debarred, and when should it be possible to deviate from the rules? Such questions have motivated this paper, and we will address several of them in an attempt to develop principles for the length of debarment and to describe how debarment should depend on firms’ efforts to become more trustworthy, so-called self-cleaning. EU law, and more particularly the recently revised Public Procurement Directive, will remain the legal frame of reference, even though several of our points are more generally relevant. Specifically, the paper addresses (i) the consistency between the purpose of the rules and the mechanisms at play; (ii) the criteria for efficient debarment rules with a specific focus on the length of debarment and self-cleaning; and (iii) the space for policy implications under the new EU Procurement Directive. In particular, we explore the opportunities of framing a coherent system under the new Directive.

Keywords: public procurement, corruption, sanctions

JEL Classification: D4, K2

Suggested Citation

Hjelmeng, Erling and Søreide, Tina and Søreide, Tina, Debarment in Public Procurement: Rationales and Realization (July 6, 2014). Published as a chapter in G. M. Racca and C. Yukins. 2014. Integrity and Efficiency in Sustainable Public Contracts. Bruylant. Uploaded with permission from editors. , University of Oslo Faculty of Law Research Paper No. 2014-32, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2462868

Erling Hjelmeng

University of Oslo - Department of Private Law ( email )

PO Box 6706 St Olavsplass
Oslo, 0130
Norway

Tina Søreide (Contact Author)

Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI) ( email )

P.O.Box 6033 Bedriftssenteret
N-5892 Bergen, 5006
Norway

University of Bergen, Faculty of Law ( email )

Norway

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