In brief

With Judgment No. 544 of 18 July 2022, the Administrative Court of the Basilicata Region dismissed the appeal against the decision to award a tender for the supply of flu vaccines to the regional health service. In this regard, the plaintiff challenged the allocation of the type and quantity of flu vaccines to be supplied into separate lots, based on the alleged violation of the principles of competition and non-discrimination.

Key Takeaways 

• In its decision, the administrative court highlighted that, pursuant to Article 51 of the Code of Public Contracts, the contracting authority is only required to justify the decision of not dividing the tender into lots, rather than the allocation of quantities of product into separate lots.
• Moreover, the administrative judge reiterated that the division into lots falls within the contracting authority’s discretionary power, which can be challenged only in the case of evident unreasonableness, irrationality or arbitrariness, with the exclusion of mere reasons of convenience. On this point, the administrative court noted that, in the case at hand, the contracting authority provided detailed reasons for the tender’s division into lots, which was of a logical nature and justified by reasonable choices, by making reference to the specific characteristics of available vaccines and for the better pursuit of the public interest and that, therefore, there were no grounds for justifying the judicial review of the contracting authority’s technical discretionary powers in this matter.