BESTEK - The Public Procurement Podcast
Oct 22, 2026 · 22 min · 9 segments
Host Dr Marta Andhov presents an aperitif episode of the Bestek public procurement podcast, featuring clips from “Remedial Systems in Public Contracts Law vs Non-Legislative Measures”, a panel she…
Marta AndhovHostGoing way back, the basis is that these are private contracts governed by private law.
There's no concept of a public contract being different.
Fast, big fast.
Public contracts are all subject to some statutory regime.
There is no way that they can be paid for without statutory regime.
And this becomes highly complex.
If you go back, the context, therefore, for the contract often provided an interpretative lens through which you could interpret the contracts differently from a standard private contract.
So it was a contract for land improvements.
there would be some idea of public good, so that there would be a statutory basis of challenges.
Although the contract says this, look at the statutory framework.
That must entail that the contract meant this or that or the way in which it was tendered.
It means that there was no coherent or comprehensive system of court regulation, but there were actually, when you go back in the Victorian case, which is a common heritage of England and New Zealand, there were actually lots of cases.
If you look them up, they look as if their case is about sewage or something like that, or drainage or something like that.
But actually, when you dig down into them and get past the Victorian language, quite often there are little nuggets of procurement law in there.
So buried underneath all that Victorian language about sewage and drainage disputes, there are these little nuggets of real procurement law.
And I think that's a lovely reminder that none of it's new, right? People have been fighting about favorism and money changing hands in public contracts for centuries.
Paymaster General for naval and army procurement during the painful period I was referring to, basically the Napoleonic Wars.
If you misappropriated funds from the Paymaster General, the penalty was death.
So we've scaled back our remedial system, at least in some senses.
And Michael's own line on that, we've scaled back our remedial system, at least in some senses, might be the driest joke on this whole panel.
It's also a useful way into a bigger question because it shows you that enforcement has always existed on a spectrum from execution in one end to whatever we've got today at the other.
Going way back, the basis is that these are private contracts governed by private law.
There's no concept of a public contract being different.
Fast, big fast.
Public contracts are all subject to some statutory regime.
There is no way that they can be paid for without statutory regime.
And this becomes highly complex.
If you go back, the context, therefore, for the contract often provided an interpretative lens through which you could interpret the contracts differently from a standard private contract.
So it was a contract for land improvements.
there would be some idea of public good, so that there would be a statutory basis of challenges.
Although the contract says this, look at the statutory framework.
That must entail that the contract meant this or that or the way in which it was tendered.
It means that there was no coherent or comprehensive system of court regulation, but there were actually, when you go back in the Victorian case, which is a common heritage of England and New Zealand, there were actually lots of cases.
If you look them up, they look as if their case is about sewage or something like that, or drainage or something like that.
But actually, when you dig down into them and get past the Victorian language, quite often there are little nuggets of procurement law in there.
So buried underneath all that Victorian language about sewage and drainage disputes, there are these little nuggets of real procurement law.
And I think that's a lovely reminder that none of it's new, right? People have been fighting about favorism and money changing hands in public contracts for centuries.
Paymaster General for naval and army procurement during the painful period I was referring to, basically the Napoleonic Wars.
If you misappropriated funds from the Paymaster General, the penalty was death.
So we've scaled back our remedial system, at least in some senses.
And Michael's own line on that, we've scaled back our remedial system, at least in some senses, might be the driest joke on this whole panel.
It's also a useful way into a bigger question because it shows you that enforcement has always existed on a spectrum from execution in one end to whatever we've got today at the other.
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