Public procurement updates: Romania, August 2020

Despite the constant update of the public procurement legal framework, the Romanian authorities have signalled several issues related to the public procurement contracts granted to certain companies, in circumstances which are not able to comply, in all cases, with the general principles of transparency and equal treatment.

Thus, in order to ensure the observance of such principles to a higher extent, on July 24, 2020 Law no. 148/2020 for the completion of Law no. 98/2016 on public procurement (“Law 148/2020“) has been enacted. Consequently, Law 148/2020 introduces a set of obligations which must be fulfilled by joint stock companies with share capital consisting of bearer shares (“JSC”).

Even though Law 148/2020 is a legal novelty in its essence, the same does not necessarily come as a surprise for the business environment. This fact is due to several obligations enacted last year for JSC, related to the prohibition of issuing new bearer shares and the conversion of the current bearer shares into registered shares until January 2021.