The E15Initiative jointly implemented by the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) and the World Economic Forum aims to generate strategic analysis and recommendations for government, business, and civil society geared towards strengthening the global trade and investment system for sustainable development. One of their great initiatives is to publish 'think pieces' to stimulate a more informed debate about how trade policy and institutions can best be adapted to the highly interconnected global economy of the 21st century.
One of these first think pieces is Anderson, Kovacic and Müller, Promoting Competition and Deterring Corruption in Public Procurement Markets: Synergies with Trade Liberalisation (Feb 2016). In this well-thought and persuasive piece, the authors expand on their previous thoughts in this area [“Ensuring integrity and competition in public procurement markets: a dual challenge for good governance,” in Arrowsmith & Anderson (eds), The WTO Regime on Government Procurement: Challenge and Reform (Cambridge University Press, 2011) 681-718] and make a compelling case for the careful integration and balancing of competition, corruption and trade considerations in public procurement regulation. Their abstract is as follows:
Efficient and effective government procurement markets are critical to economic growth, development, and the welfare of citizens. Yet, two very serious challenges bear on the performance of these markets: (i) ensuring integrity in the procurement process (preventing corruption on the part of public officials); and (ii) promoting effective competition among suppliers. Typically, these challenges are viewed as separate and distinct: the former (corruption) is treated primarily as a principal-agent problem in which the official (the “agent”) enriches himself/herself at the expense of the government or the public (the “principal”); while the latter (promoting competition) involves preventing collusive practices among potential suppliers and removing barriers that impede participation in relevant markets. This think-piece demonstrates that these two problems often overlap, for example where public officials are paid to turn a blind eye to collusive tendering schemes or to release information that facilitates collusion. As well, while transparency requirements are often central to efforts to eradicate corruption, such measures can, if not properly tailored, facilitate collusion and thereby undermine efforts to strengthen competition. Thus, careful coordination of measures to deter corruption and to foster competition is needed. Further, the think-piece argues that participation in the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA), or in similar regional arrangements, can play an important role both in promoting competition and in deterring corruption. The GPA enhances possibilities for healthy competition in relevant markets through participation by foreign-based or affiliated contractors. It helps to prevent corruption by requiring adherence to appropriate (tailored) transparency measures, and by exposing procurement activities to checks and balances including domestic review (“bid protest” or “remedy”) systems and international scrutiny.
Focusing on my pet topic of transparency in public procurement regulation and how this can affect competition in markets where public procurement is an important demand component, I am thrilled to read that Anderson, Kovacic and Müller stress that:
... increasingly, some challenges in the design of appropriate levels of transparency at the different stages of the procurement process have been recognised in both the procurement and competition communities. The OECD (2007) points out that:Governments need to find an adequate balance between the objectives of ensuring transparency, providing equal opportunities for bidders, and other concerns, in particular efficiency. The drive for transparency must therefore be tempered by making transparent what sufficiently enables corruption control.Indeed ... certain kinds of transparency measures can clearly facilitate collusion and, consequently, are problematic from a competition policy point of view (Marshalland Marx 2012; Sanchez Graells 2015A). While, for example, there may be no way around the need for publication of award criteria and technical specifications in public procurement if responsive tenders are to be solicited, their usefulness as tools for facilitating inter-supplier agreement needs to be recognised. Similarly, the publication of procurement outcomes, while enabling monitoring by the public as the “principal,” can also serve cartel participants in policing anti-competitive agreements and thereby enhancing cartel stability. Sanchez Graells (2015B) discusses specific possible concerns regarding transparency measures that may be associated with centralised procurement registers.
A further complication is that optimal transparency levels may differ from country to country. “Solutions” that are potentially workable in some contexts may be highly problematic in others. For example, in jurisdictions where outright corruption problems are believed to be minimal, some lessening of transparency measures might be considered, for the sake of preventing collusion. On the other hand, in economies where corruption is rampant, any lessening of transparency measures may be a recipe for disaster. This explains why the very high priority that is given to transparency in public procurement processes in some countries in Eastern Europe may, in fact, be appropriate notwithstanding possible collusion facilitation concerns, at least as an interim measure. In any case, as explained below, both competition law enforcement and competition advocacy are clearly part of the solution (pp.9-10).
Of course, I am really thankful that they picked up on some of my recent research and I hope that their think piece will help disseminate these insights, which I consider extremely important for the proper design of public procurement rules in a way that is socially advantageous [for further discussion, see A Sanchez-Graells, 'The Difficult Balance between Transparency and Competition in Public Procurement: Some Recent Trends in the Case Law of the European Courts and a Look at the New Directives' (November 2013)].