Law of public biddings

        According to the Brazilian Federal Constitution, article 37,

item XXI: "With the exception of the cases specified in law,

public

works, services, purchases and disposals shall be contracted by public

bidding proceedings that ensure equal conditions to all bidders, with

clauses that establish payment obligations, maintaining the effective

conditions of the bid, as the law provides, which shall only allow the

requirements of technical and economic qualifications indispensable to

guarantee the fulfilling of the obligations." The regulatory law is Law

Number 8666, 21st June, 1993.

            The Law forbids preference to or differential treatment between Brazilian and foreign companies. However, when local

and

foreign competitors offer equivalent conditions in terms of price,

quality and delivery time, the law ensures preference for: goods

produced or supplied by a Brazilian firm of national capital; locally

produced; and produced or supplied by Brazilian firms. The comments

below are a very superficial highlight of some important topics of the

law.

            - Article 1 mentions the entities subject to the

law: all the three branches; all the three levels of government

(Federal, State, and Municipal); all agencies and foundations; all

public companies, including those with private participation (this means

that big businesses like PETROBRAS, Banco do Brasil and others are

subject to the law).

            - Article 3 mentions that the

nationality of the bidders will be considered only as a tie-breaking

criterion: otherwise,

Brazilian and foreign companies compete

equally. Also, article 3 states that all the bidding process is open to

the public, except, of course, for the value of bidding while not

disclosed.

            - Article 4: all bids are in national

currency, except in the cases prescribed in article 42 (international

purchases).

            - Article 24 states the situations where

bidding is not mandatory. Some examples: purchases of small value (as

defined by law); emergency situations which put people or premises in

risk; when previous bidding processes had no bidders; to purchase or

rent specific buildings; several others.

            - Article 25

states situations when a bidding process is not feasible. Examples:

there is only one possible contractor for a given product or service

(electricity supply, for example); a professional is so outstandingly

better than all the others that a bidding competition would be

meaningless.

            - Article 45 states that, besides the price bid, technical factors may also define the winner.

Internet: <www.V-brazil.com/business> (adapted).

Based on the above text, judge the following items about biddings regulated by Law Number 8666, 21st June, 1993.Contracts to deal with emergency situations may be awarded without a bidding process.