News · Administrative law · – July 2026

Public procurement: the principle of the result as the guiding criterion for tenders and litigation

TOPIC
Public Contracts Code (Legislative Decree 36/2023) — the principle of the result under Article 1 and its impact on tenders and exclusions.

The principle of the result is now the prevailing interpretative criterion in procurement litigation: administrative courts use it to give priority to the timely award of the contract and its best performance over formalistic readings of the lex specialis. Litigation over purely documentary defects is scaled down where the tender is substantively reliable.

In operational terms the principle is coordinated with trust in administrative action and with the exhaustive list of grounds for exclusion: procedural assistance (soccorso istruttorio) is applied more broadly and contracting authorities must justify formal exclusions in light of the concrete interest in selecting the best tender.

IN PRACTICE
For companies bidding in tenders: an exclusion based on merely formal irregularities is now more effectively challengeable; it is useful to expressly invoke Articles 1 and 3 of Legislative Decree 36/2023 already at the procedural-assistance stage or in the appeal.

Summary note by the CommercialistiAvvocati network, based on specialised legal and practice sources. The text does not reproduce original contributions and does not constitute professional advice.

← Back to news Contact the network