Argumentation of Legal-Business Decisions Concerning Amendments in Public Procurement Procedures - Amendments to Public Procurement Contracts In the Area of Energetics

The central idea of the project is to support our primary partner on the project, Holding Slovenske elektrarne – HSE [the Holding of Slovene Powerplants] with a reply to the following question: when is it possible to change a public procurement contract? In carrying out such a contract, tenderers often face circumstances that did not exist prior to the entry into the contract. Despite their highest diligence they could not envisage circumstances that to some extent do change certain elements of their contractual relationship. In such cases they would need to adjust certain contractual provisions to the newly created circumstances, and thusly change the valid contract without beginning a new public tender procedure. Notwithstanding that problem, they have so far rather simply taken a risk that the valid legislation from this area would be violated. This kind of changes in the public procurement procedure are in particular relevant for the area of energetics, where the market situation is quickly altered so a delay in proper business reaction or adjustment to that could easily cause a damage to business. Moreover, the discussion on the admissibility of the change of a public procurement contract would need to be extended from the contractual to the (prior) phase of public procurement procedure when the invitation for tenders is made. The legal basis for such a change is given in the legislation, however, it is not entirely clear how such can be done in practice, which certainly depends on successful legal argumentation regarding a particular change. The relevance of such a change would need to be substantiated from an economic point of view first, which calls for a detailed analysis in this respect. Thus we will develop a suitable model of optimization in this area. In order to have a better overview of economic efficiency of public procurement procedures, we will develop a model based on blockchain technology. However, if there is an economic rationale for the change of a public procurement, this does not already mean that it is legally justified. So our ambition is broader, as we also want to see how such economic reasons would work in the legal sense. Consequently, we plan to develop a model of legal-economic argumentation, which will firstly include a premise intended for economic-business optimization, while, secondly, the other premise will imply the use of a suitable legal provision as properly interpreted and argued. The model of legal-economic argumentation will be possible to use in various interdisciplinary areas, here it will be applied to the problem of public procurement procedures in the area of energetics, where the change of a public procurement contract represents a particular element in this model. Additionally, it needs to be stressed that already in the positive law, both of the EU and the RS, certain special characteristics apply to the area of energetics as an infrastructural activity. The limitations in this area are somewhat less severe than in the field of general public procurement procedures. The interdisciplinary character of this project is even upgraded by certain findings from administrative and organizational sciences. It includes a research in the existing state of organizational energy in the management of individual public procurement projects in the HSE. The research will also be extended to management of public procurement projects of other legal entities with the intention to make a comparison. Furthermore, in order to make a comparative analysis of organizational energy factors that boost optimization, we will also use the existing database of measurements from other projects. In relation with such, we will list best practices of leadership that boost optimization of project management (with respect to public procurement) and will implement such with respect to the management of public procurement projects at the HSE.