Art. 51. Subdivision into lots

1. In accordance with the EU regulation on public contracts, both in ordinary sectors and special sectors, in order to favor the access of micro-enterprises, small and medium enterprise, contracting authorities or entities shall subdivide contracts into functional lots as referred to in Article 3, paragraph 1, letter qq), or in performance lots as referred to in Article 3, paragraph 1, letter (ggggg) in conformity with the categories or specializations in the sector of works, services or supplies. Contracting authorities or entities shall, explain the reasons for the lack of subdivision into lots of a contract in the procurement documents or in the invitation to confirm interest and in the individual report under Articles 99 and 139. In case of subdivision into lots, the relevant value shall be adequate in a way to ensure the effective possibility to participate for micro-enterprises, small and medium enterprises. It is forbidden for contracting authorities to subdivide into lots only to exclude from the application of provisions in this Code, or to award through the artful aggregation of contracts.

2. Contracting authorities or entities shall also indicate, in the contract notice or in the invitation to confirm interest, whether tenders may be submitted for one, for a single lot, for several lots or for all of the lots.

3. Contracting authorities or entities may, even where tenders may be submitted for several or all lots, limit the maximum number of lots that may be awarded to one tenderer, provided that the maximum number of lots per tenderer is stated in the contract notice or in the invitation to confirm interest, to submit tenders or to negotiate. In those same procurement documents they shall also indicate the rules or the objective and non- discriminatory criteria they intend to apply for determining which lots will be awarded, where the application of the award criteria would result in one tenderer being awarded more lots than the maximum number.

4. Contracting authorities or entities may award contracts combining several or all lots to the same tenderer, where they have specified in the contract notice or in the invitation to confirm interest that they reserve the possibility of doing so and indicate the lots or groups of lots that may be combined, as well as the modalities through which perform the comparative assessment between tenders on single lots and tenders on the combination of lots.