A Research On The Review Body Responsible For Government Procurement Complaints

Since government procurement law has been promulgated, the size of government procurement market is getting bigger and bigger and the scope of government procurement becomes more and more wide, and government procurement system has developed rapidly in China. Meanwhile, many problems have been found in government procurement practice in China. An effective domestic review system is crucial to the healthy development of government procurement system; it plays an important role in protecting the lawful rights of the suppliers and maintaining the operation of government procurement. The review body responsible for government procurement complaints (hereafter referred to as "the review body") is core to domestic review system, such a body is important to ensure the effectiveness of domestic review system. With the rapid development of tendering and government procurement practice and the promulgation of Tendering Law and Government Procurement Law, the Chinese scholars have begun to study government procurement system and published some works. Moreover, some scholars have paid attention to the review body responsible for government procurement complaints in their researches.However, the author noticed that there are certain problems in researches on for the review body mentioned earlier:first, many academics merely provide a brief introduction to the review body while doing research on government procurement law or domestic review system; there is little literature that provides a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the procurement review body. Second, it is also difficult to find research specially focusing on provisions on forum for review in the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA) and less attention is paid to legal rules on the review body and practice in the GPA Parties in China. It should be noted that China initiated the GPA accession negotiation in2007. It implies that China will have to make adjustments in relevant aspects of government procurement regime, according to requirements of the GPA. Therefore, the author, based on provisions on forum for review in the GPA and legal rules and practice on the review body in the GPA Parties, tries to provide a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the review body by using different research methods such as competitive research and literature review.This paper is divided into six parts. The first part is the introduction, which introduces background, current Chinese and oversea researches on the topic as well as the framework of the paper. The second part is an overview of domestic review system, in which the concept of the domestic review system and its main contents are introduced. The third part discusses different models used for choosing the review body in the world, by examining the GPA provisions on forum for review and analyzing the relevant legal rules and practice in the GPA Parties. In the forth part, current provisions on the review body and problems existed in practice in China are analyzed; also, why these problems are caused are discussed. In the fifth part, the author puts forward three suggestions to solve those problems discussed earlier, including unifying the review body, enhancing the independence of the review bodies, and improving the effectiveness. The last part is the conclusion, which summarizes the research results in this paper.The author begins with an introduction to the concept of domestic review system, then analyses the current review bodies and problems existed in practice in China, and makes certain suggestions for improvement, based on the examination of the GPA provisions on forum for review and legal rules on the review body and practice in the GPA Parties. Finally, the following conclusions are made:the review body is core to domestic review system, it is important for ensuring the effectiveness of domestic review system and maintaining proper operation of the all government procurement activities. In terms of the review body, in practice there are mainly three problems, including the lack of an unified administrative review body, the lack of independence of the review bodies, and unsatisfactory effectiveness. To solve these problems, the author suggests unifying the review body, enhancing the independence of review bodies, and improving the efficiency of review bodies. If these measures can be taken, it will be helpful not only for improving the effectiveness of domestic review system but also for harmonizing the Chinese domestic review system with the GPA rules.The author puts forward the following views in the paper by reading and analyzing related materials:firstly, to solve the problem that there is no a unified review body in China, the author suggests setting up a government procurement review board managed by the State Council as a unified review body, which specially deals with the suppliers’complaints relating to government procurement; secondly, as to the improvement of challenge procedures, the author, as asserted by certain Chinese academics, suggests removing the requirement that suppliers must first complain to the procuring entity before seeking external review and allowing suppliers to complain directly to the administrative review body in order to avoid delay and improve review body’s efficiency.