Nove has successfully represented AS SEBE bus and transportation company in a public procurement dispute.
According to Nove, the Estonian Supreme Court dismissed the appeal of a transport company of the District Court's decision that its replacement by AS SEBE due to what Nove describes as its "continuous breach of contract" was proper.
According to Nove, the Court's decision "affirmed that the contracting authority has the right not to tolerate poor quality." Elaborating, the firm reports, "the case law has confirmed that even small but persistent and systematic breaches of contract can lead to the exclusion of an economic operator from subsequent public procurement .... According to the ruling of the District Court, which has entered into force, infringements of previous procurement contracts may also be assessed as a whole, even if no single infringement gave rise to cancellation or a heavy contractual penalty. The total number of sanctioned infringements listed on dozens of pages over a couple of years clearly exceeds the level at which the infringements can be considered as serious and continuous."
According to Nove, "Attorney-at-law Veiko Vaske commented that the ruling brings the performance of public contracts closer to normal contractual practice. The message from the courts is that, when executing over-the-counter procurement contracts, one cannot count on the contracting authority to forget all old sins overnight due to the formal nature of the procedure and to avoid problems with the next procurement. The customer is ultimately king and having a good customer relationship and diligent and professional execution of contracts is also the key to success in the public procurement market."
