{"id":81511,"date":"2026-09-18T19:41:54","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T22:41:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/a3aengenharia.com\/?post_type=articles&p=81511"},"modified":"2026-09-18T19:41:54","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T22:41:54","slug":"engineering-consulting-law-14133-technical-price-noncompetitive-procurement","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/a3aengenharia.com\/en-us\/content\/technical-articles\/engineering-consulting-law-14133-technical-price-noncompetitive-procurement\/","title":{"rendered":"Engineering Consulting under Law 14,133: Competitive Bidding with Technical and Price Criteria or Noncompetitive Procurement?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When procuring Engineering Consulting<\/strong> under Law 14,133\/2021, the Public Administration must first answer a structural question: is competition feasible?<\/strong> If it is, the rule is to conduct competitive bidding and, when the technical quality of proposals is relevant, preferably use technical and price<\/strong> criteria. If competition is infeasible and the requirements of Article 74(III) are met, procurement may proceed through noncompetitive procurement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AGU Normative Guidance 107\/2026 made this reasoning even clearer. It recognizes that Engineering Consulting services covered by items \u201ca\u201d, \u201cd\u201d, and \u201ch\u201d of Article 6(XVIII) are specialized technical services of predominantly intellectual nature, cannot be classified as common engineering services, and therefore should not be procured through the electronic auction procedure. Competitive bidding is the appropriate bidding route, except where noncompetitive procurement applies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means the correct decision is not simply choosing between \u201cbidding\u201d and \u201cdirect procurement.\u201d It is necessary to assess the nature of the service, importance of technical quality, comparability of proposals, market, recognized expertise, essentiality of the provider, and feasibility of competition<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first decision is not technical and price versus noncompetitive procurement<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The issue is often presented as though the Public Administration had two equivalent options: conduct competitive bidding using technical and price criteria or directly procure through noncompetitive procurement. Legally, the sequence is different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first issue to analyze is the feasibility of competition<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  • If competition is feasible, the bidding procedure should be structured.<\/li>
  • If competition is infeasible, the hypothesis under Article 74 may be assessed.<\/li>
  • Within the bidding procedure, the contracting authority should determine which award criterion best identifies the most advantageous proposal.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    Therefore, technical and price criteria are not a \u201cmore bureaucratic\u201d alternative to noncompetitive procurement, and noncompetitive procurement is not a simplified version of technical and price evaluation. They are responses to different legal situations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Decision tree for competitive bidding, technical and price criteria, and noncompetitive procurement in Engineering Consulting<\/title>