Monday 23 May 2011

New OpenForum Europe monitoring report on EU public procurement available - 13% government IT tenders illegally specify brands

OpenForum Europe (OFE) today published a new monitoring report of public tenders. Similar to the results found in previous years there is still a high number of public tenders that illegally specifies brand names. According to OFE "13 % of a sample of tenders published in the Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union made reference to specific trademarks or brand names".

Now, to be very clear, this figure does not accuse public procurers of following illegal practices. There is a lot of lack of knowledge prevailing as well as apparent lack of alternatives in case of lock-in situations. Yet, the report gives a good indication on issues where open and fair competition is impacted. There is only one remedy: a clear route for open procurement.

The full report is available on the OFE website. Definitely worth reading.

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