Abstract

The August 2014 amendment of the Public Procurement Act significantly altered the provisions concerning verification of aa abnormally low price offered by a bidder. Therefore, it reflects on a very important judicial issue, namely the distribution of the burden of proof in case of a dispute between the contracting authority and the contractor concerned. First, the distribution of the burden of proof is such that the contracting authority requesting explanations from the contractor has to have reliable arguments as to the difference between the bid price and the implementation costs calculated by estimating contract value or the arithmetic mean of prices offered by other bidders, whereas in the course of explaining that issue the requested contractor bears the burden of proof that the price is not abnormally low and is justified by implementation costs. Afterwards, in the course of a possible hearing before the National Appeal Board the contractor must prove that despite satisfactory explanations the contracting authority rejected the bid without justification.