‘Burden Relief and Expanded Remedies’ Public Procurement Service Improves Investigation of Unfair Procurement Practices

The Public Procurement Service (PPS) is improving the method of investigating unfair procurement practices with the keywords of alleviating corporate burdens and expanding relief.

On the 1st, the PPS announced that it will revise and implement regulations related to the investigation of unfair procurement practices as part of the ‘2024 Public Procurement Killer Regulation Innovation Plan.’

The revised regulations take effect from today. Accordingly, the PPS will operate a voluntary reporting period before the investigation of unfair procurement practices begins, and provide benefits such as partial mitigation of measures to companies that sincerely report voluntarily within the period.

Previously, when multiple reports (or tips) were received regarding similar unfair procurement practices, the investigation burden on the investigated companies increased accordingly.

However, going forward, depending on the case, the PPS will notify the voluntary reporting period before the investigation starts, and if the violation is comprehensively acknowledged and related materials are sincerely submitted (reported), the PPS explained that it will reduce sanctions such as disqualification from bidding and grant additional investigation deferrals for a certain period to ease the burden on companies.

The PPS will also expand opportunities for relief of rights for investigated companies through the regulation revision.

Previously, when the recovery of unjust profits was decided due to unfair procurement practices, companies were given a 10-day period to submit opinions before the recovery amount was finalized in the procedure, and a 7-day objection period after the recovery amount was finalized and notified to the company.

In addition, the PPS will expand opportunities for relief of rights by granting companies with a debt expiration period of more than three months and an estimated unjust profit recovery amount of 50 million KRW or more additional opportunities to explain during the investigation stage.

Lim Gi-geun, Administrator of the PPS, said, “We will examine and supplement whether there are points to improve in the investigation and recovery procedures of unfair procurement practices from the perspective of companies,” adding, “However, to maintain the basic values of public procurement, ‘fairness and transparency (Back to the basic),’ sanctions and recovery measures for clear violations will be strictly enforced.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.