Case law has confirmed that even small but persistent and systematic breaches of the contract can lead to the exclusion from subsequent public procurement. On October 9, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal of the bus operator, who had been excluded from the Harju County Eastward transportation Procurement due to previous continuous breach of contract. According to the ruling of the District Court, which has entered into force, infringements of previous procurement contracts may also be assessed as a whole, even if no single infringement gave rise to cancellation or a heavy contractual penalty. The total number of sanctioned infringements listed on dozens of pages over a couple of years clearly exceeds the level at which the infringements can be considered as serious and continuous.
Attorney-at-law Veiko Vaske commented that the ruling brings the performance of public contracts closer to standard contractual practice. The message from the courts is that when you neglect to perform the public contracts, you can’t expect the contracting authority to forget all the old sins overnight due to the formal nature of the procedure. The customer is the king and therefor diligent and professional execution of contracts is the key to success in the public procurement market. NOVE represented AS SEBE in the dispute, which was declared successful following the exclusion of another company due to persistent breach of contract.