A Polish company that bid for a tender of the Polish Water Authority, has requested from the Authority to receive the details of the competing companies that have applied to the same tender, the tender documentation, and the details of the competing applicants.
The Court ruled that the details of the other tender applications should be published. The regulatory framework in the EU supports confidentiality of tender submissions, yet the confidentiality is not restricted, and should be balanced between the economic and IP rights of applicants, to public interests right and competition laws in the common market. Thus, there is a need to restrict the confidentiality, either directly or indirectly, of IP, so there will be no IP infringement of the applicants. Hence, as it is possible to publish administrative data without harming the IP of the other applicants, the Authority that has published the tender must publish the administrative data of the other applicants, as long as there is no hindrance of IP, economic operations of the competing companies, competition law and public interest.