Last year, more than 42,000 bidders took part in competitive procurements on Prozorro. Yet for many businesses, tenders are still associated with excessive red tape, opaque requirements, and the risk of losing a contract over a technicality.
The new version of the Law on Public Procurement, which takes effect next spring, is about more than European integration. It also offers practical answers to problems that cost bidders time, money, and market access every day.
Here are 10 changes that could make public procurement more attractive to businesses.
1. More time to prepare a bid
Bidders often do not have enough time to prepare their bids, especially in works procurements. During the full-scale war, the deadlines for submitting bids were shortened even further, although they have now been fixed at 15 days.
Construction will see substantial changes once the new law takes effect. The minimum deadline for submitting bids in works procurements below the EU thresholds (€5.4 million) will be extended to 20 days.
What this means for businesses: five extra days can make the difference between simply taking part and submitting a well-drafted, properly costed bid.
2. Tender documentation in machine-readable format only
Tender documentation supplied as photographs or scanned paper pages means extra hours of work, especially for construction companies, since cost-estimate data has to be re-entered manually into specialized software.
The new law requires contracting authorities to publish tender documentation in machine-readable format. In construction procurements, the cost-estimate part of the project must also be published in the format used by specialized estimating software.
What this means for businesses: faster pricing and the ability to process more tenders with the same team.
3. Prozorro Market procurements can finally be challenged
Prozorro Market was designed to make it easier for the state to buy standard goods and for suppliers to access orders. However, the simplified model created a gap: businesses have had no effective mechanism for challenging discriminatory conditions in such procurements.
The new law gives businesses that option for procurements above €10,000, namely a complaint to the Antimonopoly Committee. The Cabinet of Ministers still has to set out the detailed procedure.
What this means for businesses: the ability to defend their rights on Prozorro Market.
4. More formats for cooperation between the state and businesses
Ordinary tenders are poorly suited to situations where the state needs an answer to a problem and no ready-made solution exists on the market.
The law expands the set of tools for cooperation between the state and businesses. For more complex tasks, for example, an innovation partnership will become available. The state will be able to describe the problem, and a company will be able to propose, develop, and deliver a new solution. This opens up procurement to businesses that sell technology built for the contracting authority’s needs.
What this means for businesses: more ways to work with the state.
5. Only genuinely necessary qualification requirements
Today, a contracting authority can require a certain number of employees, units of equipment, proven experience, and financial capacity, even where these conditions are not needed to perform the specific contract.
Such requirements are hard to challenge before the AMCU, since they formally apply equally to everyone, yet they place a disproportionate burden on bidders.
The new law introduces an additional test: qualification criteria must be linked to the procurement item and limited to what is genuinely necessary to perform the contract.
What this means for businesses: fewer tenders with excessive requirements and a stronger position for bidders challenging the terms.
6. Alternatives will be allowed in large tenders
Now, a bidder submits a single bid, that is, one way of meeting the contracting authority’s need. For companies that can offer several technologies or configurations, this can be a constraint.
In procurements above the EU thresholds (over €140,000 for goods), the new law allows a bidder to submit an option alongside the main bid, provided the contracting authority has allowed for this in the documentation.
What this means for businesses: you can offer two solutions in a single tender.
7. Dropping an inconvenient tender and announcing the same one again will become harder
Experienced companies know the scenario: the bidder has defended its win, but the contracting authority does not want it as a supplier, so it abandons the procurement and announces a new one instead. The business has spent its resources and has to start all over again.
The new law prohibits announcing an identical tender until the previous one has been canceled and a report on its results has been published in the system.
What this means for businesses: fewer opportunities to wipe out a tender result simply because the winner is unwanted.
8. Fixing flaws in documents under the 24-hour rule will become easier
The option to correct flaws in a bid within 24 hours has already saved many businesses on Prozorro from having their bids rejected over technicalities.
By standardizing certain terms, the new law expands the list of errors that businesses will be able to correct through this mechanism.
What this means for businesses: less risk of losing a contract over a technical error, since more can be corrected in a bid.
9. It will be harder for contracting authorities to reject the winner
Today, a contracting authority can treat certain acts or omissions by the winning bidder as a refusal to sign the contract and use this as grounds to reject its bid.
The new law narrows the scope for manipulation: only a formal refusal document submitted by the winning bidder will count as a refusal.
What this means for businesses: winner status will be harder to revoke.
10. The director’s passport will not end up in the public domain
Some contracting authorities still require a bid to include the passport of the company’s director or signatory. Since documents on Prozorro are public, this practice creates an unjustified risk to personal data.
The new law explicitly prohibits requiring a passport of a Ukrainian citizen or a foreign national as part of a bid.
What this means for businesses: protection of your officers’ personal data.
The new law will not, of course, fully eliminate the risk of contracting authorities acting in bad faith. Some of the innovations will also require secondary legislation, technical changes to the system, and consistent practice by oversight bodies.
Still, the direction of travel is positive for businesses. So even companies that were once disappointed by tenders on Prozorro should take another look at taking part next year.
This material is funded by the European Union. Its content is the sole responsibility of Transparency International Ukraine and does not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.
Source: forbes.ua
