Art. 84. Unique qualification system for firms that carry out public works

1. Notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph 12 and Article 90, paragraph 8, parties carrying out any public works of a value equal to or greater than 150,000 euros, shall prove possession of the conditions of qualification referred to in Article 83 by certification by the appropriate private law bodies authorized by ANAC.

2. ANAC, with the decree referred to in Article 83, paragraph 2, also identifies the standard quality levels of the controls that the certifying bodies SOA) must carry out, with particular reference to those of a non- documentary nature. The activity of monitoring and controlling compliance with the above-mentioned standard levels of quality implies the exercising of discretionary powers, or rather, in the most serious cases, the suspension or revocation of ANAC’s permit to operate.

3. Within three months of the date of entry into force of this Code, ANAC shall carry out a special survey on the possession of the requirements for carrying out the activity by the parties currently active in certification, and the manner in which it is carried out, providing for the outcome by means of warning, suspension, or revocation of the permit in the case of no possession of the requirement or of the operation considered not upstanding. ANAC reports on the results of the above-mentioned special survey to the Government and the Chambers in order to provide assessment factors regarding the compliance of the current unique qualification system to competition and transparency requirements, including in terms of the quantity of existing bodies or the need for the identification of forms of public contribution to them and their certification activities.

4. The bodies referred to in paragraph 1 shall certify to:

a) The absence of the grounds for exclusion referred to in Article 80 which constitutes the condition for qualification;

b) Possession of the economic, financial, technical and professional capacity requirements referred to in Article 83; the period of documentable activity is that relating to the decade prior to the date of the signing of the contract with SOA to obtain the qualification; technical and organizational requirements including the certificates issued to the performing undertakings by the contracting entities.

The certification bodies acquire the above-mentioned certificates solely from the Observatory, copies of which are sent by the contracting entities

c) Possession of quality system certification conforming to the European standards of the UNI EN ISO 9000 series and the applicable national regulations issued by accredited parties in accordance with the European standards of series UNI CEI EN 45000 and series UNI CEI EN ISO/IEC 17000

d) Possession of a business rating certification, issued by ANAC in accordance with Article 83, paragraph 10.

4-bis. The bodies referred to in paragraph 1 immediately report to ANAC cases where economic operators make false statements or produce untruthful documents for the purpose of the qualification. ANAC, if it finds serious fault or the wilful misconduct of the economic operator, taking into account the gravity of the matter and its relevance in the qualification procedure, shall have it entered in the computer records for the purposes of exclusion from tendering procedures and subcontracting awards under Article 80, paragraph 5, letter (g, for a maximum period of two years. Upon the deadline set by ANAC, the entry will lose its effectiveness and is immediately cancelled.

5. The unique qualification system for firms that carry out public works is organized in relation to the type and amount of works.

6. ANAC shall supervise the qualification system and, for this purpose, perform inspections without prior notice or request any document deemed necessary. Supervisory and control powers are also exercised on a reasoned and documented instance of an undertaking, SOA or contracting entity. Contracting entities are obliged to carry out spot checks at minimum, in accordance with predetermined procedures, that the requirements of the certification are met, promptly reporting any irregularities found to ANAC, which provides for the precautionary suspension of the effectiveness of the certification of the requirements within ten days of receipt of the application. ANAC shall provide for the verification within 60 days, in accordance with the procedures laid down in the guidelines. The checks carried out by the contracting entities constitute a positive factor of evaluation for the purposes of the reward referred to in Article 38.

7. For works contracts of a value equal to or greater than 20 million euros, in addition to the presentation of the qualification requirements certification referred to in Article 83, the contracting entity may require additional requirements aimed at:

a) The verification of economic and financial capacity. In this case, the competitor provides the significant economic and financial parameters required, certified by auditing companies or other parties who are responsible for the technical evaluations of the certification body, which unequivocally discloses the financial exposure of the competing undertaking at the time it participates in a tender. As an alternative to this requirement, the contracting entity may require a turnover of at least two times the amount of the tender that the undertaking has had in the best five of the 10 years preceding the date of publication of the notice

b) The verification of professional capacity for contracts for which unlimited classification is required. In this case, the competitor provides evidence of having carried out work for bodies and types in the category identified as prevalent to those tendered and appropriately certified by the respective procurement entities, by submitting the work execution certificate. This requirement only applies to works contracts of over 100 million euros.

8. The guidelines referred to in this Article govern the cases and procedures for suspending or cancelling certifications, as well as the revocation of the authorizations of the certifying bodies. The guidelines also govern the criteria for determining the fees for the qualification activity in relation to the total amount and the number of general or specialized categories required to be qualified, having regard also to the necessary reduction thereof in case of stable consortia as well as for micro and small and medium-sized enterprises.

9. In order to ensure the effectiveness and transparency of audits on the certification activity set up by the SOAs, ANAC shall pre-determine and publish on its website the criterion and number of spot checks to be carried out annually on the certificates issued by the SOAs.

10. Violation of the provisions of the guidelines is punishable by the fines provided for in Article 213, paragraph 13. For the violations referred to in the previous sentence, payment at a reduced rate is not permitted. The amount of the fine is determined by ANAC by order of injunction on the basis of the general criteria laid down in Law No. 689 of November 24 1981, with particular reference to the criteria of proportionality and adequacy in relation to the gravity of the particular case. In the most serious cases, in addition to the administrative fine, the additional penalty of the suspension of business activity is applied for a period from one month to two years, or until the revocation of the permit. The revocation of the permit shall always apply in the event of a recurrence of the breach that led to the additional penalty of the suspension of activity, pursuant to Law No. 689 of November 24 1981.

11. The SOA qualification has a duration of five years, with verification by the third year of maintaining the general requirements as well as the structural capacity requirements set out in the guidelines.

12. Within one year from the date of entry into force of this Code, by decree of the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, upon the proposal of ANAC, after consulting the competent parliamentary committees, qualification methods, including alternatives or experiments by contracting entities deemed to be particularly qualified are identified pursuant to Article 38, in order to improve the effectiveness of the verifications and consequently, the quality and morality of the performances of economic operators, where appropriate through a gradual overcoming of the unique qualification system of firms that carry out public works.

12-bis. Parties who on the date of entry into force of this Code were acting as technical directors with a performer of public contracts and on the same date having a minimum of five years’ experience, without prejudice to Article 146, paragraph 4, of this Code, may continue to perform such functions. paragraph introduced by legislative decree no. 56/2017 in force from 20-5-2017