Janson Baugniet

 Administrative contracts and procurement contracts

As a result of the action taken by the European Union with regard to the opening of markets, contracts and procurement contracts have progressively been subjected to increasingly restrictive rules regarding competitive bidding.

Today, no contract or procurement contract can escape the call for competition and mechanisms of court protection.

We assist our public and private clients at every stage of conclusion procedures both for administrative contracts and contract awards procedures: we provide help in preparing applications and tenders, drawing up particular specifications, decision-making, civil and administrative pre-contractual (summary) and merits litigation, compensation claims and the execution of contracts.

We help our public and private clients with all types of contracts, works, supplies and services, such as:

• Computerisation of antenna services of public television stations
• Acquisition of public authority building stock by the sale or constitution of dedicated companies
• Public-private partnerships in urban planning, construction and exploitation of general interest infrastructures (motorways, computerised management systems, cinemas), construction and management of buildings intended for public services and exploitation of sewage networks
• Sewage treatment plants
• Energy purchase
• Architectural contests
• Acquisition of buildings by public authorities
• Purchase of equipments and rolling stock

Urban planning, environment, protection of architectural heritage, natural sites and cultural heritage

The rarity of resources helps reinforce the action of public authorities in spatial planning and environmental protection.

The precarious nature of the urban and rural environment and nature's fragility pushes public authorities to protect our environment by imposing increasingly strict restrictions on building owners.

Today, the act of building or developing an economic activity must take into account these imperatives, which concern the future of our environment.

We help our public and private clients with:

• Preparing applications for building permits (urban planning, subdivisions, environment, socio-economic, heritage)
• The regularisation of an infringement situation
• Defending projects before municipal and regional authorities and before consultative committees
• Town planning regulations projects developed by municipal and regional authorities
• Administrative appeals procedures
• Civil litigation procedures relating to urban planning and environment law (action in cessation, in matters of environmental protection, application for the demolition of a building, private nuisance, repairs to urban or environmental damage)
• The audit of buildings and installations subject to authorisation

We help our public and private clients with:

• Protection procedures relating to real estate heritage (monuments and sites) and public furniture (cultural heritage) implemented by the public authorities
• Disputes about protection measures before the Council of State and civil jurisdictions
• Grant applications

Action of public authorities in the economic field

The State is losing a part of its hold on activities of general economic interest that historically it used to exert. In parallel, its action extends to sectors of economic activity that were once unknown to it.

Its action mainly concerns the range of economic activities undertaken by private operators, grants in various forms given to certain companies or in certain fields of activity with uncertain profitability, such as taxation.

We help our public and private clients with:

• The elaboration of projects to develop in the field of public authorities
• The elaboration of private management projects relating to public services and public infrastructures
• The negotiation of contracts to be concluded with the public authorities and their execution
• Administrative and civil challenge procedures relating to the rights granted to private operators by the public authorities
• The administrative and civil challenge procedures relating to the taxation of regions and communes specific to certain sectors of activity

Civil service, judiciary, notaries, bailiffs

The State has lost a part of its hold on regalian functions. In parallel, it has developed a set of rules that govern its action on the major functions of the State (civil service, justice, legal auxiliaries, notaries) and strives to ensure the professionalisation of these functions (senior officials, magistrates) and guarantee the independent action of their holders (magistrates).

We help our public and private clients with:

• The elaboration of statutory and contractual statutes governing public agents
• Administrative procedures governing nomination and advancement
• Disciplinary procedures before the authorities and administrative jurisdictions
• The legal actions linked to nomination and advancement procedures or disciplinary procedures

Access to professions and regulated sectors of activity

The opening of markets driven by the European Union and the liberalisation of public services networks as well as the desire of public authorities to control the action of economic operators in sectors of activity considered of general interest have rendered the legal environment of many economic activities complex: multiplicity of supervisory bodies, authorisation procedures for exercising activities, multiplicity of standards (Europe, federal State, regions) and stakes (consumers, companies, general interest, freedom of trade, freedom of circulation and establishment, free competition).

We help our clients with:

• Preparing applications for exercising a profession or a regulated economic activity
• Defending applications before the authorities
• Administrative and legal challenge procedures governing authorisations, authorisation refusals and authorisation withdrawals

Administrative and constitutional litigation

The action of the public authorities is subject to the control of specialised jurisdictions (administrative jurisdictions and Council of State) as well as those of legal jurisdictions, without any one prevailing over the others.

The action of the public authorities also tends to induce the litigation process to depart from its traditional spheres of activity and increasingly impact on the daily lives of those under its jurisdiction, whether this be a private person or economic operator. This action by the public authorities has led to a need for increased protection; it is therefore natural that those under its jurisdiction request protection from the administrative and civil courts, but also before the Constitutional Court.

We help our public and private clients with:

• Before every administrative jurisdictions (specialised jurisdictions, regulation authorities, Council of State)
• Before every legal jurisdictions, civil, commercial and correctional, and before arbitrary jurisdictions
• In administrative procedures to suspend and set aside administrative acts
• In summary and substantive legal procedures
• Before the Constitutional Council, in the suspension and setting aside of standards subject to its control and on prejudicial matters.

Fundamental rights and freedoms

In the latter part of the late 20th century, the emergence of the international law of human rights (particularly the International Pact of Civil and political Rights and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms) has considerably reinforced the protection of citizens vis-à-vis the State.

This protection has extended to all fields where the State directly or indirectly exerts its influence on the private and professional life of citizens and on the activity of companies.

Today it comes from numerous specialised sources (UN and specialised agencies, Council of Europe, European Union) and has been developed under the action of international jurisdictions (European Court of Human Rights, European Court of Justice of First Instance and the Court of Justice of the European Communities) whose authority often imposes internal law corrections at legislative level as well as in litigation procedures.

We take into account this fertile environment in the defence of our clients before administrative and legal jurisdictions as well as before public authorities.