Appeal for annulment of a negotiated procurement procedure without prior publication of a notice

Our firm undertook the representation of an economic operator who was not invited to submit a bid in a procurement procedure for the supply of a seawater desalination unit, following the Contracting Authority’s decision to resort to the exceptional negotiated procedure without prior publication of a call for bids. By filing a pre-contractual review application before the Hellenic Single Public Procurement Authority (HSPPA), annulment of the procedure was sought on the grounds, first, that the statutory conditions of extreme urgency arising from unforeseeable circumstances under Article 32(2)(c) of Law 4412/2016 were not met and, second, that the required prior consent of the HSPPA to the use of that exceptional procedure had not been obtained, in breach of an essential procedural requirement.