S.L. 601.3 Art. 153Public supply contracts.

The negotiated procedure without prior publication may be used for public supply contracts in the following instances:

(a) where no tenders or no suitable tenders or no requests to participate or no suitable requests to participate have been submitted in response to an open procedure or a restricted procedure, provided that the initial conditions of the contract are not substantially altered and that a report is sent to the Commission where it so requests; or

(b) where the supplies can be supplied only by a particular economic operator for any of the following reasons:

(i) the aim of the procurement is the creation or acquisition of a unique work of art or artistic performance;

(ii) competition is absent for technical reasons;

(iii) the protection of exclusive rights, including intellectual property rights: Provided that the exceptions set out in sub-paragraphs

(ii) and (iii) shall only apply when no reasonable alternative or substitute exists and the absence of competition is not the result of an artificial narrowing down of the parameters of the procurement; or

(c) where in so far as is strictly necessary, for reasons of extreme urgency brought about by events unforeseeable by the contracting authority, the time limits for the open or restricted procedures or competitive procedures with negotiation cannot be complied with. The circumstances invoked to justify extreme urgency shall not in any event be attributable to the contracting authority; or

(d) where the products involved are manufactured purely for the purpose of research, experimentation, study or development; however, contracts awarded pursuant to this paragraph shall not include quantity production to establish commercial viability or to recover research and development costs; or

(e) for additional deliveries by the original supplier which are intended either as a partial replacement of supplies or installations or as the extension of existing supplies or installations where a change of supplier would oblige the contracting authority to acquire supplies having different technical characteristics which would result in incompatibility or disproportionate technical difficulties in operation and maintenance; the duration of such contracts as well as that of recurrent contracts shall not, as a general rule, exceed three years; or

(f) for supplies quoted and purchased on a commodity market; or

(g) for the purchase of supplies on particularly advantageous terms, from either a supplier which is definitively winding up its business activities, or the liquidator in an insolvency procedure, an arrangement with creditors, or a similar procedure under national laws or regulations.Public service contracts.