Utilities Contracts Regulations 2016 in force from 18 April 2016

An unsuccessful bidder wishing to challenge a procurement decision might be forgiven for assuming that if it can prove there has been a breach of the procurement rules, and that it has suffered loss or damage as a result, then there should be a right to damages. But, in a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court has just decided otherwise, stating that damages will only be available if the breach is “sufficiently serious”.

We’ve seen an interesting case, Hannover , where the European court examined the exemptions for in-house contracts and joint cooperation, sometimes called the “Teckal” and “Hamburg” exemptions after the cases which originally established them, and found that the situation in hand in Hannover , involving a so-called “transfer of powers”, was entirely distinct from either of them.