Appeals double Italian procurement award times to 240 days
A Bank of Italy working paper finds that administrative appeals affect only 0.4 percent of Italian public procurement procedures but 7.2 percent of total contract value, nearly doubling average award times between 2023 and 2025.
0.4 percent of tenders, 7.2 percent of value
Administrative appeals touched just 0.4 percent of the roughly 830,000 Italian public procurement procedures issued between 2023 and 2025, worth over €1 trillion, but accounted for 7.2 percent of total contract value, according to Bank of Italy researchers Enza Maltese and Gabriele Rovigatti.
Appeals concentrate in large contracts, open procedures, and service or works contracts, which see litigation rates of 11 percent and 9 percent respectively, against under 2 percent for supplies.
A Cox duration model shows litigation nearly doubles average award times, from 122 to about 240 days.
For public works, award times rise roughly 50 percent, adding 57 days, while construction start is delayed about 30 percent, adding 77 days.
Thirty percent fewer tenders after a first appeal
The study links new open-data on 2023-2025 administrative appeals published by the Council of State with ANAC procurement records, the first such matching at the individual-tender level.
Using a Callaway and Sant'Anna difference-in-differences design, the authors show that after a first appeal, municipalities cut published tenders by about 30 percent, halve total tendered value, and shift away from open procedures, which fall more than 40 percent, toward direct awards, up six percentage points.
Effects concentrate among municipalities scoring in the lowest tercile of the Municipal Administration Quality Index.
A safety valve with a price tag
The paper quantifies a trade-off long assumed but rarely measured: litigation safeguards fairness yet doubles award times and pushes weaker administrations toward direct awards.
Matching and Cox models limit any causal claim, as the authors concede.
The sharper finding: administrative capacity, not courtroom reform, determines how costly litigation becomes.