Public Procurement Procedures Which Attract Only one Bid: Digging a Bit Deeper

The research in this article was originally inspired by the Commission’s finding in 2011 that 20% of all tenders advertised at EU level only attract one bid and astonishment over the lack of interest or importance attached to this fact by the Commission. This finding has been confirmed and elaborated by the recent report from the European Court of Auditors finding that the number of tenders that attract only one bid has increased in the period 2011–2021 and that weak competition for public contracts has not been sufficiently addressed by the Commission (and the Member States). The question of why some procurement procedures in the Member States have attracted only one bid is thus more topical than ever. The data set examined is from the period 2009–2022, that is, it covers periods both before and after the transposition deadline for the Procurement Directives from 2014. This study is initial and explorative, taking a descriptive and quantitative approach to examining the EU level data. It is found that the effect of the Procurement Directives from 2014 has been an increase in the share of procurement procedures that attract only one bid. Further, it is concluded that certain countries have more tenders which attract only one bid than others, but the industry is also important. The findings of the European Court of Auditors concerning affected industries are confirmed by this study (in particular medical consumables and various medicinal products). A model building on the variables available in TED (year, directive, contract object, type of contracting authority, type of procedure, industry, award criterion and value) is developed to predict the likelihood of receiving only one bid.