Abstract

The practices of offering public procurement contracts at abnormally low prices, which become more frequent in the situation of an economic recession, are damaging not only to the competitors who honestly calculate their offered prices, but primarily to public contracting authorities exposed to various quantitative and qualitative depletions caused by insufficient coverage of real costs of execution of contracts. In the traditional meaning, a price is abnormally low when it is insufficient to finance the costs of execution of a contract. Given the duty to verify transaction security, the contracting authority is forced to make a preliminary examination of each price offered in a public procurement procedure, guided by the costs according to the estimated contract value. In case of reasonable doubts, the bidder should be called to explain individual costs of the offered object of the contract, which automatically shifts the burden of proof onto the bidder. If the bidder fails to make explanations or the explanations do not sufficiently show the absence of grounds for the charge of the abnormally low price -- the contracting authority shall reject the tender under Art. 89.1.4 of the Public Procurement Law. Rejection of the tender may be appealed to the National Appeal Chamber and is also subject to judiciary control under the complaints procedure.