Summary Report

LATVIA

Overview

Latvia has a specific law on non-concession PPPs and concession PPPs that is sufficiently detailed and provides for rules on most of the relevant aspects. This corresponds with the “very high” compliance score.

Compliance

The aspects covered well by the PPP Law are the award procedure, content of the project agreement, and project preparation including value-for-money assessment and affordability issues. The legal framework, which scores highly compliant for PPP and very high for concessions in general terms and medium/high relating to the selection of the private partner, also has some deficiencies. It does not lay down procedures for the selection of a PPP and the involvement of the public side in such award procedures. All this is covered by the public procurement law.

An advantage of the Latvian solution of not having different laws for PPPs, concessions and “normal“ public procurement may be that a harmonised regime for both concessions and non-concession PPPs exists so that investors and public officials do not have to switch between significantly different regimes just because of slight differences in the project model.

The legal framework does not address matters related to unsolicited proposals. The Legal framework prescribes the overall mandatory content of the contract but is silent on the content of the provisions, leaving it for the parties to negotiate. International arbitration is possible. Step-in rights without tender may be exercised under specific circumstances.

Effectiveness

Latvia's weakness is the policy and institutional framework and its track record. This leads to a disappointing overall result of low compliance/effectiveness for both concessions and PPPs.

Latvia has a knowledge management entity, the PPP Advisory Council. Otherwise, the institutional framework is not highly developed.