Joined Cases C‑523/16 and C‑536/16

MA.T.I. SUD SpA v Centostazioni SpA

and

Duemme SGR SpA v Associazione Cassa Nazionale di Previdenza e Assistenza in favore dei Ragionieri e Periti Commerciali (CNPR)

(Requests for a preliminary ruling from the Tribunale amministrativo regionale per il Lazio)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling — Public procurement — Directive 2004/18/EC — Article 51 — Rectification of procedural shortfalls in tenders — Directive 2004/17/EC — Clarification of tenders — National legislation making the rectification by tenderers of the documentation submitted subject to the payment of a financial penalty — Principles relating to the award of public works contracts — Principle of equal treatment — Principle of proportionality)

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Eighth Chamber), 28 February 2018

1.        Approximation of laws — Procedures for the award of public works contracts, public supply contracts and public service contracts — Directive 2014/24 — Temporal application –Decision of the contracting authority choosing the type of procedure to be followed for the award of a contract which is adopted before the transposition deadline of that directive — Inapplicability of the directive

(European Parliament and Council Directive 2014/24, Art. 90)

2.        Approximation of laws — Procedures for awarding contracts in the water, energy, transport and postal services sectors — Directive 2004/17 — Award of contracts — Principles of equal treatment of tenderers and transparency — Scope — Possibility for the contracting authority to ask a tenderer to clarify a tender or to correct an obvious clerical error in that tender — Conditions

(European Parliament and Council Directive 2004/17, Art. 10)

3.        Approximation of laws — Procedures for the award of public works contracts, public supply contracts and public service contracts — Directive 2004/18 — Submission of tenders — Member States option to invite economic operators to supplement or clarify the certificates and documents submitted with their tenders— Limits — Whether possible for a tenderer to substantially amend its tender — Excluded

(European Parliament and Council Directive 2004/18, Art. 51)

4.        Approximation of laws — Procedures for awarding contracts in the water, energy, transport and postal services sectors — Directive 2004/17 — Submission of tenders –Possibility for the contracting authority to ask a tenderer to clarify a tender — Conditions — No clause rejecting applications in the event that such documents are not provided

(European Parliament and Council Directive 2004/17, Art. 10)

5.        Approximation of laws — Procedures for the award of public works contracts, public supply contracts and public service contracts — Directive 2004/18 — Procedures for the award of public works contracts, public supply contracts and public service contracts — Directive 2004/17 — Submission of tenders — National legislation making the rectification by tenderers of the documentation submitted subject to the payment of a financial penalty — Lawfulness — Conditions — Proportionality of the penalty — No substantial change to the tender in question

(European Parliament and Council Directives 2004/17, Arts 10 and 2004/18, Arts 2 and 51)

1.      See the text of the decision.

(see paras 34-36)

2.      See the text of the decision.

(see para. 39)

3.      See the text of the decision.

(see paras 44-49)

4.      See the text of the decision.

(see paras 50-52)

5.      EU Law, in particular Article 51 of Directive 2004/18/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 March 2004 on the coordination of procedures for the award of public works contracts, public supply contracts and public service contracts, the principles relating to the award of public contracts, including the principles of equal treatment and transparency referred to in Article 10 of Directive 2004/17/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 March 2004 coordinating the procurement procedures of entities operating in the water, energy, transport and postal services sectors and Article 2 of Directive 2004/18, and the principle of proportionality must be interpreted as not precluding, in principle, national legislation establishing a mechanism of assistance in compiling the documentation, under which the contracting authority may in a procedure for the award of a public contract, invite any tenderer whose tender is vitiated by serious irregularities within the meaning of that regulation to rectify its tender, subject to the payment of a financial penalty, provided that the amount of that penalty is consistent with the principle of proportionality, which it is for the referring court to determine.

However, those provisions and principles must be interpreted as precluding national legislation establishing a mechanism of assistance in compiling the documentation under which the contracting authority may require a tenderer, on payment of a financial penalty, to remedy the lack of a document which, according to the express provisions in the contract documentation, must result in the exclusion of that tenderer, or to eliminate the irregularities affecting its tender such that any corrections or changes would amount to a new tender.

(see para. 65, operative part)