Professor Sue Arrowsmith's paper on the characteristics and evolution of the UK's approach to procurement regulation now published in English and Spanish

Professor Sue Arrowsmith’s paper on the characteristics of the UK’s approach to regulating procurement has recently been published in Spanish as part of a collection of papers and is also available in English on SSRN.

The paper identifies five key features of the traditional approach that distinguish it from that of many Civil Law systems and then trace the evolution of that approach through the years of EU membership – which required implementation of a system influenced by the Civil law model - and into the new post-Brexit regime.  It concludes, that, perhaps surprisingly, in some ways the post-Brexit regime in the Procurement Act moves the UK’s system closer to the classic Civil Law approach, particularly by making a conceptual shift towards the broader use of enforceable hard law. It also concludes, however, that, despite this important conceptual shift, in practical terms change is limited: the new rules largely maintain – and in some ways extend – the UK regime’s traditional characteristics, in particular the approach of including  limited detail in regulatory measures along with significant room for discretion.

The paper was delivered at the first International Conference on Public Procurement hosted by the Universidad Externado de Colombia, 16-18 March 2023, in Baranquilla, Colombia.

It is now available in Spanish in Dimensión general del contrato estatal en Colombia y su impacto en la internalización de la compra pública, J.C. Expósito Vélez and S. Barreto Cifuentes (eds), (Bogotá: Universidad Externado de Colombia, 2023). One of the co-editors, Sebastian Barreto Cifuentes, is a recent PhD graduate of the Law School and also translated the paper from English to Spanish for publication. The original English-language version of the paper can be found here.