Law Society and SLG call on EC to end confusion over services concessions

The Law Society has called on the European Commission to issue guidance on the law in relation to services concessions in a bid to reduce confusion over its implementation.

In a submission prepared in collaboration with Solicitors in Local Government, the Law Society said it considered that the current EU legal framework was appropriate and offered public authorities a sufficient degree of flexibility.

It suggested that a procurement regime “which restricts that flexibility through a prescriptive approach to tendering risks having a freezing effect on the willingness of contractors to participate and on the types of solutions that they offer”

However, Chancery Lane said guidance “in the form of an interpretative document that would bring together the relevant law in an accessible and up-to-date form” would be of great practical value for practitioners in public authorities, who are often under-resourced.

The aim of the guidance should be to outline the obligations on public authorities that derive from the EC Treaty and jurisprudence, the submission suggested. “Putting such principles into practice has highlighted inconsistencies between member states, confusion as to their implementation and a need to improve awareness and clarity.”

The Law Society added that while transparency, in particular in relation to large-scale concessions, was an important issue, the Commission had yet to demonstrate the need for new legislation on the subject.

“In general, the Law Society considers that any legal act dealing with service concessions would be justified only with a view to remedying distortions in the functioning of the internal market and that to date such distortions have not been identified,” the submission said.