45.—(1) Contracting authorities may authorise or require tenderers to submit variants.
(2) Contracting authorities shall indicate, in the contract notice or in the invitation to confirm interest, whether or not they authorise or require variants.
(3) Variants shall not be authorised or required without such an indication and shall be linked to the subject-matter of the contract.
(4) Contracting authorities authorising or requiring variants shall state in the procurement documents the minimum requirements to be met by the variants and any specific requirements for their presentation, in particular whether variants may be submitted only where a tender which is not a variant has also been submitted.
(5) Contracting authorities shall ensure that the chosen award criteria can be applied to variants meeting those minimum requirements as well as to conforming tenders which are not variants.
(6) Only variants meeting the minimum requirements laid down by the contracting authorities shall be taken into consideration.
(7) In procedures for awarding public supply or service contracts, contracting authorities that have authorised or required variants shall not reject a variant on the sole ground that it would, where successful, lead to either a public service contract rather than a public supply contract or a public supply contract rather than a public service contract.