The Vilnius city government will have to make a new decision regarding the inclusion of the former construction contractors of the Vilnius Lazdynai basin in the list of unreliable suppliers, the court finally decided.
The Supreme Court of Lithuania (LAT) on Thursday recognized as illegal the municipality's decision to add the companies "Montuotojas", "Mitnija", "HSC Baltic" and "Axis Power" to this list and obliged the municipality to re-solve this issue.
"The national legal regulation, which consolidates the inclusion of the members of the group of economic entities forming the automatic supplier (in this case - joint venture partners) in the list of unreliable suppliers, does not comply with the EU legal regulation. (…) A national court cannot apply a provision of national law that contradicts a provision of Union law", reported LAT.
The municipality, when deciding on the inclusion of companies in the list of unreliable suppliers, did not evaluate each of them individually, so the LAT obliged to solve this issue anew.
In January of this year, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that the legal regulation in force in Lithuania, which provides for the possibility of automatically including all partners of a consortium that participated in a public tender to the "black list" if the group of partners did not fulfill the contract, is contrary to the European Union (EU) public procurement directive.
In the beginning of 2020, the reins of Vilnius cut off 21,8 million. EUR contract with the liquidated Active construction management (formerly Irdaiva) and its partners - Montuotojas, Mitnija, HSC Baltic and Axis Power, because the contractors refused to continue the work. He also stated that if the companies do not fulfill the contract and do not eliminate the essential violations, they will take steps to add them to the list of unreliable suppliers.
The companies argued that the municipality's decision to unilaterally terminate the contract was illegal and argued that it should be considered terminated due to the municipality's own fault. They also disputed the decision to include them in the list of unreliable suppliers, claiming that only the main partner had done all the work before the termination of the contract.
LAT announced in November 2021 that the Vilnius authorities had legally terminated the contract for the construction of the Lazdynai basin, but the CJEU was approached regarding the inclusion of companies in the list of unreliable suppliers.
The construction of the Lazdynai pool was officially completed at the end of January this year. The construction of the swimming pool was completed by the Panevėžys Construction Trust.
