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In those circumstances, the Lietuvos Aukščiausiasis Teismas (Supreme Court, Lithuania) decided to stay the proceedings and to refer the following questions to the Court for a preliminary ruling: ‘(1) Must the free movement of persons and services provided for in Articles 45 TFEU and 56 TFEU respectively, the principles of equality of tenderers and of transparency provided for in Article 2 of Directive 2004/18 and the principle, which flows from those principles, of free and fair competition between economic operators (together or separately, but without limitation to those provisions) be understood and interpreted as meaning that: if related tenderers, whose economic, management, financial or other links may give rise to doubts as to their independence and the protection of confidential information and/or may provide the preconditions (potential) for them to have an advantage over other tenderers, have decided to submit separate (independent) tenders in the same public procurement procedure, are they, in any event, obliged to disclose those links between them to the contracting authority, even if the contracting authority does not inquire of them separately, irrespective of whether or not the national legal rules governing public procurement state that such an obligation does in fact exist? (2) If the answer to the first question: (a) is in the affirmative (that is to say, tenderers must in any event disclose their links to the contracting authority), is the circumstance that that obligation was not performed in such a case, or that it was not properly performed, sufficient for the contracting authority to take the view, or for a review body (court) to decide, that related tenderers having submitted separate tenders in the same public procurement procedure are participating without genuinely being in competition (and are engaged in sham competition)? (b) is in the negative (that is to say, tenderers have no obligation to disclose their links other than that laid down in legislation or in the tendering conditions), must the risk posed by participation of related economic operators and the risk of the consequences flowing from this then be borne by the contracting authority, if the contracting authority did not indicate in the public tendering documentation that tenderers had such an obligation of disclosure? (3) Irrespective of the answer to the first question, and having regard to the judgment of 12 March 2015, eVigilo (C‑538/13, EU:C:2015:166), must the provisions of law referred to in the first question and the third subparagraph of Article 1(1) of Directive 89/665 and Article 2(1)(b) of that directive (together or separately, but without limitation to those provisions) be understood and interpreted as meaning that: (a) if, in the course of the public procurement procedure, it becomes clear, in whatever way, to the contracting authority that significant links (connections) exist between certain tenderers, that contracting authority must, irrespective of its own assessment of that fact and (or) of other circumstances (for example, the formal and substantive dissimilarity of the tenders submitted by the tenderers, the formal undertaking given by a tenderer to engage in fair competition with other tenderers, etc.), separately address the related tenderers and request them to clarify whether, and if so how, their personal situation is compatible with free and fair competition between tenderers? (b) if the contracting authority has such an obligation but fails to perform it, is there a sufficient basis for the court to declare that the contracting authority has acted unlawfully, having failed to ensure procedural transparency and objectivity, and having failed to request evidence from the applicant or having failed to take a decision, on its own initiative, as to the possible influence that the personal situation of related persons might have on the outcome of the tendering procedure? (4) Must the legal provisions referred to in the third question and Article 101(1) TFEU (together or separately, but without limitation to those provisions), be understood and interpreted, in the light of the judgments of 12 March 2015, eVigilo (C‑538/13, EU:C:2015:166); of 21 January 2016, Eturas and Others (C‑74/14, EU:C:2016:42); and of 21 July 2016, VM Remonts and Others (C‑542/14, EU:C:2016:578), as meaning that: (a) where a tenderer (the applicant) has become aware of the rejection of the lowest-priced tender submitted by one of two related tenderers in a public tendering procedure (tenderer A) and of the fact that the other tenderer (tenderer B) has been declared the successful tenderer, and also having regard to other circumstances connected with those tenderers and their participation in the tendering procedure (the fact that tenderers A and B have the same board of directors; the fact that they have the same parent company, which did not take part in the tendering procedure; the fact that tenderers A and B did not disclose their links to the contracting authority and did not separately provide additional clarifications as to those links, inter alia because no inquiries had been made of them; the fact that tenderer A provided, in its tender, inconsistent information on the compliance by the proposed means of transport (refuse lorries) with the EURO V condition of the call for tenders; the fact that that tenderer, which submitted the lowest-priced tender, which was rejected because of deficiencies identified in it, first, did not challenge the contracting authority’s decision and, second, lodged an appeal against the judgment of the court of first instance, in which appeal, inter alia, it [challenged] the lawfulness of the rejection of its tender; etc.), and where, in respect of all of those circumstances, the contracting authority did not take any action, is that information alone sufficient to found a claim addressed to the review body that it should regard as unlawful the actions of the contracting authority in failing to ensure procedural transparency and objectivity, and, in addition, in not requiring the applicant to provide concrete evidence that tenderers A and B were acting unfairly? (b) tenderers A and B did not prove to the contracting authority that they were genuinely and fairly taking part in the public tendering procedure solely because tenderer B voluntarily submitted a declaration of genuine participation, the management quality standards for participating in public tendering were applied by tenderer B, and, in addition, the tenders submitted by those tenderers were not formally and substantively identical? (5) Can the actions of mutually related economic operators (both of which are subsidiaries of the same company) which are participating separately in the same tendering procedure, the value of which reaches the value for international competitive tendering, and where the seat of the contracting authority which announced the tendering procedure and the place where the services are to be provided are not very far distant from another Member State (the Republic of Latvia), be in principle assessed — regard being had to, inter alia, the voluntary submission by one of those economic operators that it would be engaging in fair competition — under the provisions of Article 101 TFEU and the case-law of the Court of Justice which interprets those provisions?’