AMENDMENT TO THE ACT ON PUBLIC PROCUREMENT EFFECTIVE FROM 01.08.2024

#122Amendment to the Act on Public Procurement effective from 01.08.2024

With effect from 01.08.2024, the National Council of the Slovak Republic approved an amendment to the Act on Public Procurement, the primary objective of which is to reduce the administrative burden of the public procurement process and the related acceleration of public procurement.

The government amendment changes the limits for individual public procurement procedures and unifies the rules for sub-limit contracts and contracts with a low value that are merged.

The most significant changes brought by the government's amendment to the Act on Public Procurement are:

1. change of the minimum threshold for small-scale contracts from the original EUR 10,000 to EUR 50,000, which make up the majority of contracts published in the Gazette of the Public Procurement Office. In addition to saving time, changing the limit is also an adaptation to the limits within the EU, for comparison, the limit in Poland is EUR 30,000, in Hungary EUR 40,000 and in Ireland EUR 50,000;
2. increase of the financial limit for below-limit orders for construction works, to which the authorized entity cannot file objections, from the original EUR 800,000 to EUR 1,500,000;
3. deletion of the institution of the request for correction, as according to the relevant EU regulations, this institution is not required;
4. regulation of the awarding of fines by the Public Procurement Office, according to the severity of the violation of the law, from 0.1 to 5% of the contract price or their sum. The aim of this amendment is to take into account the seriousness of the violation of the law and to establish an appropriate sanction compared to the originally fixed sanction of 5% of the contract price.