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Competition in British Overseas Territories’ Public Procurement

Going for Gold or a Race to the Bottom?

Laura Panadès-Estruch

DOI https://doi.org/10.21552/epppl/2020/1/5

Keywords: Competition, Caribbean, Small Jurisdictions, Ethics, Local Preferences, Publicity, Transparency


British Overseas Territories are the newcomers to public procurement. Competition has been placed at the forefront of their frameworks. But is it competition in practice or just in name? This article argues that competition is a legal principle that does not translate into practice, though performance varies across countries. Results are structured on the basis of a five variable index comprising publicity of relevant legal sources, accessibility of open tenders, publication of contract awards, local preferences and ethics in Government. This is the first scholarly work that looks at BOTs public procurement as a group, focusing on Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands.
Keywords: Competition; Caribbean; Small Jurisdictions; Ethics; Local Preferences; Publicity; Transparency.

Laura Panadès-Estruch, LLM Director in International Finance, Truman Bodden Law School of the Cayman Islands, Cayman Islands; PhD candidate in Law, University of Cambridge, UK; Member of the Public Procurement Committee of the Cayman Islands. For correspondence: -<mailto:laura.panades@gov.ky>.Acknowledgements: A word of thanks goes to Dr Trepte, who steered me towards this topic to be presented at the ‘Public Procurement: Global Revolution IX’ conference in June 2019 and to those that provided feedback during the event. Additional thanks go to HE The Governor to the Cayman Islands Mr Martyn Roper OBE, Taraq Bashir, Troy Whorms and Stran Bodden, key procurement stakeholders in the Cayman Islands, for the insightful conversations we had. Many thanks to Mr Hadleigh Roberts for patiently proofreading this article. This research is in progress and results are preliminary. Any comments or feedback are welcome. The usual disclaimer applies: all errors are my own.

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