‘Where the contract is to be awarded to the economically most advantageous tender, the contracting authority shall state in the contract documents or in the contract notice the award criteria which it intends to apply, where possible in descending order of importance.’ 


The ECJ has confirmed that the Directive does not allow contracting authorities to subsequently stipulate additional weighting factors and sub-criteria that were not set out in the original contract notice (eg if a committee subsequently sits down to decide who to award the contract to, it cannot then impose its own preferences and criteria). Needless to say, this concept of ‘transparency’ is at the heart of the Single Market (and can be used to challenge any ‘Buy British’ or ‘Buy French’ inclinations that a local contracting authority might have).