TITLE II

RULES ON THE AWARD OF CONCESSIONS:

GENERAL PRINCIPLES AND PROCEDURAL GUARANTEES
CHAPTER I

General principles

Concession notices
Article 31
1
Contracting authorities and contracting entities wishing to award a concession shall make known their intention by means of a concession notice.
2
Concession notices shall contain the information referred to in Annex V and, where appropriate, any other information deemed useful by the contracting authority or entity, in accordance with the format of standard forms.
3
Contracting authorities and contracting entities wishing to award a concession for social and other specific services listed in Annex IV shall make known their intention of planned concession award through the publication of a prior information notice. Those notices shall contain the information set out in Annex VI.
4
By way of derogation from paragraph 1, contracting authorities or contracting entities shall not be required to publish a concession notice where the works or services can be supplied only by a particular economic operator for any of the following reasons:
a
the aim of the concession is the creation or acquisition of a unique work of art or artistic performance;
b
the absence of competition for technical reasons;
c
the existence of an exclusive right;
d
the protection of intellectual property rights and exclusive rights other than those defined in point (10) of Article 5.
The exceptions set out in points (b), (c) and (d) of the first subparagraph 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 concession award.
5
By way of derogation from paragraph 1, the contracting authority or contracting entity shall not be required to publish a new concession notice where no applications, no tenders, no suitable tenders or no suitable applications have been submitted in response to a prior concession procedure, provided that the initial conditions of the concession contract are not substantially altered and that a report is sent to the Commission, where it so requests;
For the purposes of the first subparagraph, a tender shall be considered not to be suitable where it is irrelevant to the concession, being manifestly incapable, without substantial changes, of meeting the contracting authority or contracting entity’s needs and requirements as specified in the concession documents.
For the purposes of the first subparagraph, an application shall be considered not to be suitable:
a
where the applicant concerned shall or may be excluded pursuant to Article 38(4) to (9) or does not meet the selection criteria set out by the contracting authority or the contracting entity pursuant to Article 38(1);
b
where applications include tenders which are not suitable within the meaning of the second subparagraph.
Substituted by Corrigendum to Directive 2014/23/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2014 on the award of concession contracts (Official Journal of the European Union L 94 of 28 March 2014).