As from 1 July 2006 public procurement and awarding concessions is provided for by Act no. 137/2006 Coll. on Public Contracts and Act no. 139/2006 Coll. on Concession Contracts and Concession Procedures (Concession Act). Major principles of legal regulation of public contracts and concessions ensue from the Treaty establishing the European Community and from European Procurement Directives. Principles of transparency, equal treatment, non-discrimination, mutual recognition and proportionality are at issue in particular. To ensure effectiveness, efficiency and expediency in the disposition of public assets is the primary goal of the new Act on Public Contracts and the Concession Act. This goal can be attained first of all by fixing conditions for the contracts reimbursed from public funds to be concluded by contracting authorities/entities while being put out to genuine economic competition and competitive environment among economic operators.
The purpose of the new Act on Public Contracts and Concession Act is to regulate the field of public procurement in the Czech Republic in a comprehensive way, namely in pursuance to the new EC legal regulations in this area. In compliance with the new European Procurement Directives, it is geared by the efforts to establish more modern, flexible and simple legal framework for public contracts and concessions.
The main reason of new Acts is to ensure transposition of Directives 2004/17/EC and 2004/18/EC into Czech legal order. New Directives bring a lot of new and modern institutes that were contentious from the point of view of taxonomy to incorporate into current Act on Public Contracts.
The two new Acts should bring, apart from new features from the EC Directives, higher clarity of arrangements, clearer definitions of certain institutes and thus contribute to higher legal certainty of both contracting authorities/entities and economic operators.