Art. 53. Access to acts and confidentiality

1. Without prejudice to what explicitly provided for in this Code, the right to access to documents related to the award procedures and to the execution of public contracts, including tenders and offers, is subject to Articles 22 and subsequent of Law n.241 of 7 August 1990. The right to access to the documents of an electronic auction may be exercised by means of an interrogation of the registrations made by the informatic system containing the documentation of these acts in electronic formats, or through the sending or availability of an authenticated copy of the documents.

2. Without prejudice to the provisions of this Code, for secret contracts or contracts whose execution requires special security measures, the right of access shall be delayed:

a) in open procedures, in relation to the list of subjects which have presented tenders, until the expiry of the term for their presentation;

b) in restricted or negotiated procedures and in informal competitions, in relation to the list of subjects which have required invitation or have manifested their interest, and in relation to the list of subjects that have been invited to present tenders and of the list of subjects which have presented tenders, until the expiry of the term for their presentation; to subjects whose request of invitation has been rejected, access to the list of subjects which have required invitation or have shown their interest shall be allowed after official communication, by contracting authorities or entities, of the names of the candidates to be invited;

c) in relation to tenders, until the award;

d) in relation to the procedure of verification of the anomaly of the offer, until the award.

3. Acts in paragraph 2, until the expiry of the terms thereby included, shall not be communicated to third parties or made however known under any means.

4. The lack of respect of paragraphs 2 and 3 for public officials or for persons entrusted with public offices shall have relevance for the purposes of Article 326 of the Criminal Code.

5. Without prejudice to the provisions of this Code, for secret contracts or contracts whose execution requires special security measures it is totally excluded the right to access to information and any form of advertising in relation to:

a) information provided in the context of a tender or as a justification of the offer which constitute, according to justified and proved declaration of the tenderer, technical or commercial secrets;

b) to legal advices obtained by subjects held to the application of this Code, for the resolution of disputes, either potential or actual, relating to public contracts;

c) to relations reserved to the director of works, the director of execution and to the testing bodies on the demands and reservations of the executor of the contract;

d) to the technical solutions and to computer programs used by the contracting authority or entity or by the computer system operator for electronic auctions, when covered by intellectual property rights.

6. Concerning the hypothesis referred to in paragraph 5, letter a), the access is allowed for the bidder in order to defend its own interests in relation to the contract award procedure.