Problem zamówień publicznych w PRL

The article characterises selected legal solutions applied in the process of public contract award in the realities of the nationalised centrally-planned economy in the times of the Polish People’s Republic. In the study, manifestations of discrimination of private businesses in the access to public contracts are presented. Such discrimination was one of the foundations for the legislation applicable at the time. The article also highlights other features of legal acts of statutory rank governing contracts awarded by state-owned organisational units, such as the fragmented nature of their regulations, including the omission of regulations governing the procedure of reaching an agreement and executing a contract. This allowed formulating conclusions about the merely superficial role of the provisions on supplies, services, and works for state entities and the fundamental inability of these regulations to play the role attributed to public procurement in the market economy, consisting in deploying the mechanism of competition between entrepreneurs for cost-efficiencies in public spending.

Delegation of authority in the field of financial activity as a factor of socio-economic development

The article substantiates the application of the system of delegation of authority in the field of financial activity. Delegation of powers of public authorities to private entities is a common practice in a number of foreign countries, and has long been practiced in the field of business management. Delegation of authority can successfully develop those areas of the economy that are currently most affected by bureaucracy and related negative processes (formalism, corruption, complex and lengthy approval processes, obtaining permits, etc.). It seems that the delegation of certain powers in the budget sphere can significantly increase the efficiency, effectiveness and speed of achieving results by budget recipients, as well as provide a number of other advantages. Two main ways of implementing the delegation of powers in the field of financial activity, which can be carried out both jointly and independently of each other, are proposed: the conclusion of public contracts, as well as the establishment of the institute of parapublic organizations.

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Changes in Competitiveness in the Public Procurement System

The aim of the article/hypothesis: The impact of the pandemic on the European and global economy is unquestionable. The question is how the epidemiological situation has affected the European public procurement system. The study was limited to assessing the changes in the structure of the procedures used to award public contracts and the possible effects of a lack of dynamics in this respect. The aim of the work is to observe the effects of changes in the structure of tendering procedures and to identify other phenomena in the public procurement system, caused by the pandemic. Methodology: Taking into account the diversity of national solutions in the field of public procurement, resulting both from the legal systems and national practice, an analysis of awarded public contracts was carried out, with particular emphasis on the domestic market. The research was conducted in the direction of determining the changes in preferences of selecting non-competitive procedures, new possibilities of awarding contracts and the analysis of changes in the preferences of the non-competitive procedure on the European Union market. The tools used for the analysis included basic statistical measures and the non-parametric Mann-Whitney test. Results of the research: As a result of the analysis, it was found that there was a statistically significant increase in the share of the non-competitive procedure on the European market. The observation of individual national markets shows that in some Member States there has been a decrease or a very limited increase in the non-competitive mode. This may result from ad hoc legal changes and means that an unknown number of contracts of unknown value was awarded outside the control of the monitoring of the public procurement system.

Public-Private Arbitration in Romanian Law

The article endeavors to introduce the constitutional and statutory framework for arbitration in Romania, whilst discussing the dilemmatic legislative provisions allowing for public entities to become parties in an arbitration dispute. It includes a discussion of the concept of administrative contracts in Romania and a chronological analysis of the evolution of public-private arbitration under administrative contracts. Some of the landmark Romanian public-private arbitrations under international investment treaties have held the public agenda in recent years and they shape the public debate on arbitration as fit for purpose when it comes to public contracts.

CSR communication and firms’ ability to win public procurement contracts

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the link between the corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication efforts of companies and their ability to obtain public procurement contracts.Design/methodology/approachThe authors are exploiting a database with the number of public procurement contracts won by SBF 120 companies in France and a constructed CSR index over the period of 2007–2015. The authors provide estimates of the amount of public contracts won by those companies.FindingsThe results suggest a striking influence of CSR communication on the ability of firms to win contracts.Research limitations/implicationsThis study focused on the case of the SBF 120 companies under the French regulatory system and European directives, which are different from the obligations in North American countries. Second, our constructed CSR index may be too simplistic in nature, and its application is limited only to the French context. Third, we do not have any evidence about the efficiency of well-ranked firms in our study. CSR reporting is still considered to be a form of communication, even if formal, that can contain information that does not especially reflect reality, as the scandals of several companies have shown in recent years (e.g. Volkswagen, Eiffage, Enron).Practical implicationsCompanies should consider Business-to-Government (B-to-G) market when investing in CSR actions.Originality/valueThis is one of the first empirical studies measuring the impact of CSR on the ability of companies to win public contracts.

PUBLIC CONTRACTS IN HOLDING COMPANIES OPERATING IN THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY – A CASE OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC

This paper is produced as an exploratory study with the aim of carrying out a taxonomy of construction companies operating in the Czech Republic, taking into account the type and number of concluded public procurement contracts. In processing the multidimensional matrix describing the companies, a cluster analysis was used to identify the dependence between the set of variables. Results of the analysis suggest that the prevailing types of public procurement procedures include negotiated procedure without prior publications, open procedure and simplified below-threshold procedure, while from the point of view of the contracted value, the open procedure is of the highest importance. As for the cluster analysis conducted for the types of public procurement analysis, one can conclude that there is a relation between the number of public contracts concluded and the scope of the types. On the other hand, the extension of the conducted cluster analysis did not provide any conclusive evidence regarding the relationship between the types of public procurement contracts and the types of holding structures. Such a study has not been realised in the Czech Republic yet. Thus, the results of this study provide a background for research in the area of public procurement in the Czech Republic. Some potential research questions have been stated in the discussion part of the paper.

Corporate criminal liability for Bribery in Kuwait: issues in disclosing commissions

Purpose This study aims to critically analyse corporate criminal liability for bribery in Kuwait, by focusing on laws and regulations as key problem-solving mechanisms. To that end, it identifies and assesses the existing anti-bribery laws in Kuwait, including a legal evaluation based on international standards. This study raises several issues concerning the lack of regulations of private bribery, facilitating payments and kickbacks in government contracts, and gifts and hospitalities in private sector, using UK Bribery Act 2010 (UK BA 2010) as a reference. This study showcases how these legal shortcomings are inconsistent with international treaties, and undermine efforts to tackle corruption. Emphasis has been put on criminalising private bribery, regulating the acceptance of hospitalities and gifts and abolishing the commission payment regime in public contracts in Kuwait. Design/methodology/approach Adopting a doctrinal focus, this paper examines case studies on curbing corporate bribery using both primary and secondary sources. Given the increasingly transitional and organised nature of business corruption, extravagant gifts and facilitating payments in public procurements globally, a comparison is drawn with the UK BA 2010. Findings Kuwait’s legal system does not criminalise bribery in private sector. Its anti-bribery laws are not at par with international standards. Therefore, the laws on disclosing commissions in public contracts must be abolished, and facilitating payments and hospitality payments in private sector must be regulated. Originality/value This study explores corporate criminal liability for bribery in Kuwait by investigating the weaknesses and legal shortcomings of the existing anti-bribery laws, and proposing reforms to counter these using UK BA 2010 as a guide.

Which Manufacturing Enterprises Have Received Advantages in Access to Government Orders After the Crisis of 2014–2015?

This paper, based on two surveys of manufacturing enterprises in 2014 and 2018, analyzed the characteristics of enterprises receiving public orders, as well as the dynamics of changes in access to public procurement after tightening external conditions for the Russian economy against the backdrop of international sanctions and the 2014–2015 crisis. The analysis showed that in 2016–2017 in the manufacturing industry, almost half (45%) of large and a third of medium-sized firms had public contracts. However, among the small firms that took part in the survey, only 22% received public contracts, despite the declared policy of supporting small businesses. In contrast to 2013, in the post-crisis period there were no significant differences in access to public procurement for enterprises with and without state participatio n. Along with this, the state began to impose more requirements on the disclosure of information on the structure of ownership by enterprises. Membership in business associations gave advantages in access to public procurement for medium and large enterprises, but this effect was absent for small firms. In general, against the background of international sanctions and the crisis of 2014–2015 for all types of enterprises in the post-crisis period, the scheme of complementarity of direct and indirect instruments of state support has been preserved, and for small enterprises, the manifestations of the "model of exchanges" between government and business have become more significant, thus small enterprises providing assistance to the regional and local authorities in the social development of the region, more often received public orders.

Rank Uncertainty in Organizations

A principal incentivizes a team of agents to work by privately offering them bonuses contingent on team success. We study the principal’s optimal incentive scheme that implements work as a unique equilibrium. This scheme leverages rank uncertainty to address strategic uncertainty. Each agent is informed only of a ranking distribution and his own bonus, the latter making work dominant provided that higher-rank agents work. If agents are symmetric, their bonuses are identical. Thus, discrimination is strictly suboptimal, in sharp contrast with the case of public contracts (Winter 2004). We characterize how agents’ ranking and compensation vary with asymmetric effort costs. (JEL D23, D62, D81, D82, D86)