Herbert Smith's Brussels office has been awarded a prestigious contract by the European Commission to produce a guide explaining the remedies available to complainants in the field of public procurements.
The guide will be produced primarily by partner Craig Pouncey and solicitor Adrian Brown. It will be published next year, and made widely available to the public to increase awareness of the procurement rules among suppliers and contractors throughout Europe.
Pouncey said: “Public procurement remedies are a sensitive area relating to public bodies' and utilities' purchase of goods and services. If they are not fairly tendered this guide will act as a first port of call so people know their rights, how to pursue them and who to call.”
The work is a “follow on” to a “very large” publicly tendered contract last year where Herbert Smith surveyed the implementation of remedies by all the member states.
“We won that because of our wide public procurement client base. Having done that, we were in a prime position to produce the guide,” said Pouncey.
He added that, although producing the guide was not vital to the Brussels office in terms of revenue, “the value of the work is in its profile – we have advised the body that is actually formulating the legislation”.
