The Utilities Contracts Regulations 2016

Contracts subject to special arrangements

33.  Without prejudice to regulation 34, a utility carrying out one or more of the activities referred to in Commission Decision 97/367/EC(1) relating to the exploitation of geographical areas for the purpose of extracting oil or gas in Northern Ireland shall—

(a) observe the principles of non-discrimination and competitive procurement in respect of the award of supplies, works and service contracts, in particular as regards the information which the utility makes available to economic operators concerning its procurement intentions;

(b) in respect of a contract it awards whose value (determined in accordance with Regulations 17) exceeds EUR 5,000,000, send the following information to the Commission within 48 days of the award—

(i) the name and address of the utility;

(ii) the nature of the contract, namely whether it is a supply contract, a service contract or a works contract and whether it is a framework agreement;

(iii) a clear indication of the nature (for example, by using the Classification of Products by Activity(2) of the product, work or service provided);

(iv) whether the contract was advertised and, if so, in which newspaper or trade journal and if not, the tendering procedure used;

(v) the number of tenders received;

(vi) the date of the award of the contract;

(vii) the name and address of the successful supplier or contractor;

(viii) the value of the contract;

(ix) the expected duration of the contract;

(x) any share of the contract which has been, or may be, sub-contracted, to which over 10% of the value of the consideration to be given under the contract is attributable;

(xi) the country of origin of the product or service;

(xii) the main award criteria chosen for identifying the most economically advantageous tender;

(xiii) whether the contract was awarded to a bidder which submitted a variant from the utility’s initial specifications; and

(c) in respect of a contract it awards whose value (calculated in accordance with regulation 17) equals or exceeds 400,000 euro but does not exceed 5,000,000 euro—

(i) retain in respect of each contract the information referred to in sub-paragraphs (b)(i) to (ix) for not less than 4 years from the date on which the contract is awarded; and

(ii) supply this information, either immediately upon request by the Commission, or not later than 48 days after the end of the period of 3 months ending on the last day of March, June, September or December in which the contract was awarded.

(1)

OJ No L 156, 13.6.1997, p55.

(2)

The Classification of Products by Activity is the official product classification by activity which is used by the EU for statistical purposes.