Case C-6/20: Request for a preliminary ruling from the Tallinna Ringkonnakohus (Estonia) lodged on 7 January 2020 — Sotsiaalministeerium v Innove SA
Date: 2020-01-07
Institutions: Court of Justice
Subjects: award of contract, competition law, food aid, invitation to tender, public procurement, services contract, tendering, trade licence








C_2020087EN.01001501.xml










16.3.2020   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


C 87/15






Request for a preliminary ruling from the Tallinna Ringkonnakohus (Estonia) lodged on 7 January 2020 — Sotsiaalministeerium v Innove SA
(Case C-6/20)
(2020/C 87/18)
Language of the case: Estonian

Referring court

Tallinna Ringkonnakohus

Parties to the main proceedings


Appellant: Sotsiaalministeerium

Respondent: Innove SA

Questions referred







1.


Are Articles 2 and 46 of Directive 2004/18/EC (1) 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 to be interpreted as precluding national legislation — such as Paragraph 41(3) of the Riigihangete seadus (Estonian Law on public procurement; ‘the RHS’) — pursuant to which, if specific requirements for the activities to be carried out under a public contract are laid down by law, the contracting authority must specify in the tender notice which registrations or activity licences are required to qualify the tenderer, must require the tenderer to submit evidence of the activity licence or registration for the purpose of verifying compliance with the special statutory requirements in the tender notice, and must refuse the tenderer as unqualified if the latter does not possess the relevant activity licence or registration?










2.


Read together, are Articles 2 and 46 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 to be interpreted as precluding the contracting authority, in the case of a food aid procurement contract that exceeds the international threshold, from setting a selection criterion for the tenderers according to which all tenderers, irrespective of where they were previously established, must already hold an activity licence or be registered in the country of the food aid operations at the time of submission of the tenders, even if the tenderer has not previously been established in that Member State?










3.


If the preceding questions are answered in the affirmative:






(a)


Are Articles 2 and 46 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 to be regarded as provisions that are so unambiguous that the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations cannot be invoked against them?










(b)


Are Articles 2 and 46 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 to be interpreted as meaning that a situation in which the contracting authority in a public tender for food aid requires, pursuant to the national law on foodstuffs, that the tenderers already hold an activity licence at the time of submission of the tender may be regarded as constituting a manifest infringement of the rules in force, as negligence or as an irregularity precluding reliance on the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations?










(1)  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 (OJ 2004 L 134, p. 114).