The Court of Auditors (TdC) has decided to annul a contract between the Association for the Promotion of the Autonomous Region of Madeira and Nova Expressão, Planejamento de Media e Publicidade, S.A. The contract was signed on the 19th of March 2025 for the acquisition of digital production services, planning, execution, monitoring, and purchase of space for digital advertising campaigns, but the Court of Auditors refused the prior approval.
At the heart of the matter is a contract of 170 thousand euros to promote Madeira, but which, in reality, according to the court, could cost approximately 11.2 million euros.
The “illegalities” include erroneous fixing and subsequent misleading and incorrect publication of the real estimated value of the contract, in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU). The amount quoted was 170 thousand euros instead of the actual figure of 11,137,200 euros.
For the court, this option enhanced the apparent low attractiveness of this tender, limited by prior qualification, with the consequent violation of the legal rules that impose pre-contractual transparency and the promotion of competition open to the largest possible number of economic operators.
“These concrete pre-contractual illegalities are likely to change the financial result of this contract, precisely because of these violations of legal rules; this contract has become less attractive to economic operators than it was in reality.” Opines a TdC official.
The court concluded the same about the publication in the Official Gazette. The erroneous fixing and subsequent misleading and incorrect publication of the real base price, in the Diário da República (“170 thousand euros instead of the real up to 11,137,200 euros), violates the obligation of national publication of the true base price, thus also objectively enhancing the little apparent attractiveness of the limited tender.
Just a slight difference!
Samantha Gannon
info at madeira-weekly.com
