Albert Sánchez Graells

Bio: Albert Sánchez Graells is an academic researcher from University of Bristol. The author has contributed to research in topics: Procurement & Competition (economics). The author has an hindex of 5, co-authored 54 publications receiving 180 citations.

Competition and State Aid Implications of the Spezzino Judgment (C-113/13): The Scope for Inconsistency in Assessing Support for Public Services Voluntary Organisations

Abstract: The rules applicable to the financing of public services (lato sensu) are a permanent source of legal challenge under EU law. Despite the clarification of the distribution of competences between the Member States and the European Union attempted by the TFEU and its Protocol (No 26) on services of general interest, 2 the boundaries of the constraints that EU law imposes on the organisation, commissioning and financing of the provision of public services remain relatively blurry; 3 particularly where non-public providers are involved, and specially where voluntary (third sector, non-profit) organisations receive support (in the form of financing, contracts, etc) from the Member States.

Justifying the application of the theory of efficient breach specifically within the context of commercial contracting.

Abstract: This thesis provides a functional, and justifiable application of the theory of the efficient breach of contract within the commercial context. Limiting the theory’s application in this way is the primary original contribution. This is because the theory of efficient breach has not been explicitly applied solely to the commercial setting previously. This is legitimate because the underlying intention behind commercial contracting is profit generation. As such, maximising the wealth which flows from commercial contracts will be the focus of the parties involved. An additional original contribution is that this thesis represents the first major discussion of efficient breach which applies the theory to English law. This thesis also makes additional contributions. A definition of “commercial” in a contract law context is established to frame the discussion that is to follow. It is then outlined that the fundamental structure of English contract law will remain the same whether a dispute concerns a commercial, or a non-commercial contract. However, there is a difference in the approach of the court where rights are pursued for commercial, profit driven reasons in contrast with rights that are of a personal nature. Next, it is set out that in English law, promise is not the basis of contract. As such, the efficient breach of commercial contracts cannot be discounted based on issues of morality which are linked to promise breaking. Numerous other criticisms which have been directed at efficient breach are also discounted. Ultimately, a legitimate formulation of the efficient breach of commercial contracts is outlined. This iteration is permissive, rather than mandatory. It provides efficient optionality, meaning that where a party has the opportunity to breach efficiently, it will not necessarily take place. However, should a party choose to breach, they will be justified. This is a departure from more prescriptive approaches.

The implementation of BIM within the public procurement: A model-based approach for the construction industry

Abstract: Recently more and more Public Sectors have been paying close attention to save cost and, at the same time, improve efficiency. Usually, the Construction Industry has a relevant annual turnover, which represents an important part of the GDP for most of the EU countries and concerns in a large part the Public Sector. Thus, some Public Clients, such as UK, are adopting new strategies in order to improve the current situation. One of these strategies is Building Information Modelling (BIM), which forces all the parties involved in the process to adopt a collaborative approach reducing inefficiencies. Moreover, also the European Parliament is going to encourage the BIM adoption to ‘modernise the procurement process and ensure greater efficiencies’. The EU Directive will be an important push to reform the EU Members’ Public Construction Procurement. The aim of this M. Sc. Thesis is to analyse the possible implementation of BIM within the Public Procurement, especially how Model Checking can be applied within Tendering to verify the compliance between the Client’s requirements and the bid’s contents. The first part presents both the most widespread Public Procurement Methods, such as Design-Bid-Build (DBB), Design-Build (DB), Construction Management (CM), Design-Build-Operate (DBO) and Design-Build-Finance-Operate (DBFO), as well as innovative kinds of Procurement Procedures, such as Integrated Project Delivery (IPD), Project Alliancing (PA), Cost Led Procurement (CLP), Integrated Project Insurance (IPI), Two Stage Open Book and Early BIM Partnering (EBP). A paragraph is dedicated to the drivers and the barriers of e-Procurement, which should be part of the Public Procurement strategy. Later, the main issues related to BIM are shown, such as current BIM Authorised Uses and Permitted Purposes, Interoperability and OpenBIM, along with BIM implementation in Public Sector of several countries (Singapore, USA, Finland, UK, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, South Korea, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, Estonia, Sweden, Germany, China, Ireland, Taiwan and Italy) and the relation between e-Procurement and BIM. Additionally, the principal possibilities and challenges dealing with BIM adoption are presented. The following chapter is dedicated to the investigation of the possible BIM implementation in Tendering. Even if integrated procedures, such as IPD, seem to be the most suitable with BIM, a discussion of the BIM role in DBB and DB or Design Competitions is carried out, showing the main Client’s requirements, benefits for Bidders and Clients, together with limitations and possibilities. Thereafter, a paragraph illustrates Model Checking in the evaluation of design proposals. First, a short description of the main commercial software, which can support BIM-based tendering (such as Solibri Model Checker (SMC), EDM Model Server, dRofus, Affinity, dProfiler, Autodesk NavisWorks, Tekla BIMsight, Bentley Projectwise Navigator, Riuska, Autodesk Ecotect, EasyBIM, Vico Cost Planner and Mitchell Brandtman) is provided. Later, a list of the most common operations, which nowadays

Assessing Euro 2020 Strategy Using Multi-criteria Decision Making Methods: VIKOR and TOPSIS

Abstract: The European Union (EU) 2020 Strategy aims at forming the conditions for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth targets. Assessment of the EU countries’ situation is of vital importance in attaining the EU 2020 Strategy. This paper presents an impartial evaluation of the performance of 27 EU member countries in terms of each EU 2020 Strategy. For the basis of the evaluation, we propose an effective and easily practicable measure for ranking and monitoring the countries according to their performance by using the VIKOR and the TOPSIS methods, multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) methods, which allows for the integration of the 22 indicators, and be capable of considering such a broad spectrum of criteria including various economic, financial, demographic, educational and innovational. Our study provides a comparative analysis of the above-two methods. The contribution of the study to the literature is that these methods can be applied for assessing countries in terms of the EU 2020 Strategy which have the multi–dimensionality targets. The results point out new EU member countries such as Slovenia and Romania have attained higher scores than many of the 15 EU countries.