No business blacklisted from public contracts for labour law breaches yet

No business has yet been blacklisted from bidding for public procurement as punishment for employing workers in precarious conditions.

A Commercial Sanctions Tribunal was set up in September 2015, with the competence to blacklist contractors in breach of the Employment and Industrial Relations Act from participating in government public procurement.

However, the Tribunal’s chairperson Denise Vella revealed at a press conference this afternoon that no company has yet been blacklisted over two years down the line.

She said that two cases have been flagged to the Tribunal, both of which are currently under review.

She was speaking at a press conference during which the Public Contracts Review Board released its annual report.

The report shows that 125 appeals worth a total of €109 million had been filed to the board last year from businesses who felt that tender decisions had unjustly gone against them. Out of these, 48 were upheld and 77 were rejected. The average time between the lodgement of appeals the issuance of decision was around 15 days, down from six weeks in 2015.