The principles of award
Legea 98/2016 names six principles that govern every award, direct purchases included: non-discrimination, equal treatment, mutual recognition, transparency, proportionality and accountability. Any breach of the law that undermines these principles is itself an administrative offence.
Legea 98/2016, art. 2 alin. (2) și art. 224 alin. (1) lit. b)
Conflicts of interest
A conflict of interest exists when a person in the contracting authority — or in a procurement service provider working for it — who is involved in the procedure or able to influence its outcome has, directly or indirectly, a financial, economic or personal interest that could compromise their impartiality.
The law gives, as examples, the situations that can give rise to a conflict:
- someone who holds shares in a bidder, candidate, proposed subcontractor or third-party supporter, or sits on its management, takes part in evaluating the bids;
- the evaluator is the spouse, or a relative by blood or marriage up to the second degree, of a member of a bidder's management;
- the bidder has on its management or among its significant shareholders (10% or more) spouses or relatives up to the second degree of the authority's decision-makers, or people in business relationships with them;
- the bidder names, among the people who will perform the contract, people in the same relationships with the authority's decision-makers.
So that the links can be checked, the documentation names the authority's decision-makers, and the authority publishes the identity of the bidders, subcontractors and third-party supporters within 5 days of the bid deadline. A bidder in a conflict of interest that cannot be remedied by less severe measures is excluded from the procedure.
Legea 98/2016, art. 59–63 și art. 167 alin. (1) lit. e)
The PREVENT system
Legea 184/2016 set up, at the National Integrity Agency, an IT system that checks ex ante, in the procedures run through SEAP, the links between the authority's decision-makers and the bidders. The authority fills in an integrity form in SEAP; when ANI's inspectors find the elements of a potential conflict of interest, they issue an integrity warning, and the head of the authority must take the necessary measures — for instance replacing a member of the evaluation committee or excluding the bidder. Failing to act triggers, after the procedure ends, an ex officio assessment of the conflict of interest for the people covered by the integrity law (Legea 176/2010). The law was last amended in August 2026, by Legea 180/2026.
Legea 184/2016, art. 6–9; integritate.eu
ANAP's ex-ante control
Under OUG 98/2017, ANAP reviews, before award, the award documentation, the evaluation of bids and contract modifications, against checklists, for regularity and quality. The control is selective: the procedures reviewed are chosen partly at random and partly by risk indicators, so that the selection is not predictable for the authorities. ANAP issues a binding opinion, either unconditional or conditional on remedying the deviations found; the authority may carry on without remedying them, but a contract awarded that way, with serious deviations left unresolved, can be declared void by a court.
OUG 98/2017; Legea 101/2016, art. 58 alin. (2) lit. f)
Ex-post control and penalties
People authorised by the Court of Accounts establish ex post the administrative offences in Legea 98/2016 and impose the fines, from 5,000 to 30,000 lei. The fine falls on the contracting authority — which can act against the people involved only if a court finds they acted with gross negligence — and lapses 36 months after the offence. Conduct that amounts to a crime falls under criminal law.
The offences include:
- splitting a contract, or understating its value, to avoid the procedure the law requires;
- awarding without the mandatory publication, or breaking the rules on publicity and transparency;
- technical specifications that breach the drafting rules, qualification or award criteria other than those allowed, or applying them wrongly in the evaluation;
- cancelling the procedure outside the cases the law provides for, or creating artificial grounds for cancelling it;
- failing to carry out a final CNSC decision, and withholding from ANAP the information on awarding or modifying contracts.