Abnormally low Tenders: Pricing Strategies and Efficient Assessment by Contracting Authorities and Courts/the Complaints Board

The purpose of the project is to examine and assess the way Swedish courts/the Danish complaints board for public procurement handle (apparently) abnormally low tenders, in order to determine whether this handling is appropriate; in other words: are (apparently) abnormally low tenders handled efficiently in practice? The point of departure is taken in an empirical study of case law determining the current state of law on abnormally low tenders, as well as the pricing strategies deployed by tenderers. On this basis, a further purpose is to predict the effect of the amended provision on abnormally low tenders in the new Public Procurement Directive (Dir. 2014/24/EU) on the outcome of the empirical study. The research results will have an impact on the way courts, complaints boards and not least contracting authorities assess (apparently) abnormally low tenders, to the overall benefit of society. The research is interdisciplinary and will be conducted by Associate Professor, Ph.D., Grith Skovgaard Ølykke, Copenhagen Business School (law) and Ph.D., Johan Nyström, Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI) and Centre for Transport Studies (CTS) at KTH (economics).