ANALYSIS OF AWARD CRITERIA USED IN PUBLIC PROCUREMENT PROCEDURES IN ROMANIA

In public procurement procedures, the choice of award criterion, of the evaluation factors, of weightings and calculation algorithm are particularly important to successfully complete the procurement procedure. Given that after the procurement procedure has started, all these elements can no longer be changed, the correct selection of the award criterion may make the difference between the successful purchase of the products / services / works required by the contracting authority and the cancellation of the procedure. In the research literature, many cases of procurement procedures are described in which, due to the award criteria or the wrongly chosen evaluation factors, either products / services which did not reflectmost accurately the need and the advantages desired by the contracting authority (with inferior characteristics of poor quality) have been purchased, or it was decided to cancel the procurement procedure. The article describes an analysis of the award criteria existing in the Romanian legislation, the ways of choosing them, the advantages and disadvantages of the use of each criterion, the risks identified when establishing the award criteria and the measures to deal with these risks.