Public Contracts Code

The objectives of simplifying the regulations on public procurement were implemented with Legislative Decree 31 March 2023 no. 36, Public Contracts Code, which came into force on 1 April 2023 and became effective, with the related annexes, on 1 July 2023. The main objective was to simplify the regulatory framework, placing emphasis on the final result to which the tender procedure is functional. This is an immediately self-executing code. It regulates the entire tender procedure, accompanying administrations and economic operators from the initial planning and design phase to the awarding and execution of the contract. Structure: principles (Book I); ​​procurement in all its phases (Book II); special sectors and concessions (Books III and IV); remedies and self-execution (Book V). A qualifying choice was to dedicate Part I of Book I to the codification of general principles, which the previous code (legislative decree no. 50/2016) did not contain, fulfilling a function of completeness of the legal system and guaranteeing the protection of interests that would otherwise not find adequate accommodation in the individual provisions. The aim was to give a concrete and operational content to general clauses that would otherwise be excessively elastic (e.g., the specification of the concept of good faith), to use the principle-rule to resolve interpretative uncertainties (e.g., the principles that delimit the scope of application of the code) or to incorporate jurisprudential guidelines that have now become "living law" (rule on the specificity of the causes of exclusion and the related regime of atypical exclusion clauses). The codification of the principles is divided into two distinct titles: Title I, dedicated to the general principles themselves (result, trust, access to the market, good faith and protection of trust, solidarity and horizontal subsidiarity, administrative self-organization, contractual autonomy, preservation of contractual balance, specificity of the causes of exclusion, application of collective labor agreements), and Title II which, instead, codifies principles common to all the Books of the Code regarding the scope of application, the sole person responsible for the intervention and the phases of the procurement procedure. The new Code aims to promote greater freedom of initiative and self-responsibility of the contracting authorities, enhancing their administrative and technical autonomy and discretion. The Le Fonti del diritto Collection, therefore, expands the catalog and is enriched with a new and current title which, in its first edition, aims to provide legal practitioners with a valuable tool for interpretation and guidance in a recently reformed sector. Like all volumes in the Collection, this one also provides a detailed analytical index, at the end of the volume, to guide the reader in the specific search for the topics covered.