Public Procurement Authority

1. The following documents shall be published by the contracting authority:

a) the prior information notice;

b) the contract notice launching the open procedure;

c) the invitation to participate starting restricted procedures, negotiated procedures, competitive dialogues and innovation partnerships, except for the direct invitation to participate starting restricted and negotiated procedures launched by a prior information notice or a periodic indicative notice specified by a separate act of legislation, furthermore, the direct invitation to participate starting restricted procedures, negotiated procedures, competitive dialogues and innovation partnerships launched by a pre-qualification notice pursuant to a separate act of legislation;

d) the invitation launching a procedure subject to independent procedural rules according to Article 117;

e) the periodic indicative notice and pre-qualification notice specified in a separate act of legislation;

f) the contest notice launching a design contest;

g) the concession notice, except for the procedure specified in Article 128 and 129(2);

h) the notice on the results of the procedure;

i) the notice on the results of the design contest;

j) the information notice concerning an amendment to the contract.

2. The notice on the results of the procedure pursuant to paragraph (1)(h) and (i) shall be sent for publication by the contracting authority no later than twenty days after the conclusion of the contract or, in the absence of such contract, the decision of the contracting authority declaring the procedure unsuccessful or refusing the conclusion of a contract [Article 131(9)], or within twenty days of receiving the decision from the tenderer refusing to conclude a contract. In public procurement procedures conducted under Part Two, as well as for services specified in Annex 3, in public procurement procedures and concession procurement procedures with a value exceeding EU threshold, the contracting authority may publish the information notice on the results of the procedure separately for each lot, if tenders are submitted in lots. In public procurement procedures conducted under Part Two, as well as for services specified in Annex 3, in public procurement procedures and concession procurement procedures with a value exceeding EU threshold, where tenders are submitted in lots, the contracting authority may publish a single information notice on the results of the entire procedure or for multiple lots, provided that the deadline for sending the notice for publication is met for each lot involved. The public procurement procedure concludes with the publication of this notice for each lot, namely, the specific notice relevant to that lot.

3. If the contracting authority does not intend to conclude any further contract within the period specified in the prior information notice, this fact shall be indicated in the notice on the results of the procedure.

4. Contrary to the provision set out in paragraph 2, in the case of a framework agreement or a dynamic purchasing system, the contracting authority may publish a common notice on the results of the procedure concerning all the contracts concluded based on the framework agreement or in the dynamic purchasing system. In this case, the notice on the contracts awarded in the previous quarter of the year shall be sent for publication within twenty days after the last day of the calendar quarter.

5. The contracting authority shall send for publication the information notice defined in paragraph 1(j) concerning an amendment to the contract not later than five business days after any amendment to the contract.

6. The contracting authority shall send notices for publication to the Public Procurement Authority by electronic means as specified in a separate act of legislation. The contracting authority shall publish notices under this Act in accordance with the data content specified in a separate act of legislation. The detailed rules concerning the applicable notices, their mandatory content, the sending, verification, and the fee for verification of the notices, as well as their submission and publication procedures, are contained in a separate act of legislation. The fee related to the examination of notices is considered an administrative service fee. The Public Procurement Authority shall be obliged to use the fees to cover the costs of its own operation in the sphere of its basic activity.

1. After the budgetary year begins, contracting authorities may prepare a prior information notice and contracting entities may prepare a periodic indicative notice specified in a separate act of legislation, concerning the total number of public supply, public works or public service contracts planned by them for the relevant year, or for the subsequent 12 months at the most.

2. In the case of social and other specific services defined in Annex 3, the prior information notice shall include the designation of the services, which constitute the subject-matter of the contracts, the information that no further notice containing an invitation will be published in the procedure and an invitation addressed to economic operators to confirm in writing their intention to participate. In such cases the prior information notice may cover a period exceeding twelve months.

3. The contracting authority shall publish prior information notices or periodic indicative notices in a notice drawn up according to the data content specified in a separate act of legislation.

4. Where the prior information notice or the periodic indicative notice is published on the homepage of the contracting authority, the contracting authority shall be obliged to send the notice called ‘the notice on a buyer profile’ to the Publications Office of the European Union, through the Public Procurement Authority. The prior information notice or the periodic indicative notice may be published on the homepage only after the dispatch of that notice to the Publications Office of the European Union by electronic means.

5.Publication of a prior information notice or a periodic indicative notice shall not entail any obligation to conduct a procedure for the award of a contract included therein.

1. The contracting authority shall offer economic operators direct, unrestricted and full access free of charge to the procurement documents by electronic means, except for the request for registration data.

2. Where unrestricted and full access by electronic means may not be provided in the case of certain procurement documents for any of the reasons in Article 41/C (1), the contracting authority shall indicate in the notice launching the procedure the way the procurement documents shall be made available (different from electronic means, in the given case) to the economic operators or the type of measures required to be taken and the manner of access to the relevant document.

1. The procurement procedure and concession award procedure shall be conducted with the use of the single EPPS operated by the minister responsible for public procurement. The electronic communication pursuant to Article 41(1) shall be conducted in the EPPS, unless otherwise provided by this Act or a separate act of legislation based on the empowerment of this Act.

2. For the use of the EPPS, the contracting authority shall pay a fee, the amount of which is set by the law.

1. The communication of every statement or other information related to the procurement procedure and regulated in this Act or the implementation decree hereof shall be made in writing, by electronic means between the contracting authority and the economic operators, unless otherwise required by this Act.

2. Contrary to paragraph 1, communication by electronic means shall not be applicable to

a) the statements within the scope of Article 28(2) and (4), during the preparation of the procedure;

b) the conclusion of the contract; and

c) communication after the conclusion of the contract, with the exception of the preliminary dispute settlement initiated after the conclusion of the contract, the request for access to documents and the related written communication, where appropriate, and the information supply pursuant to Article 45(2).

3. The obligation to communicate via electronic means pursuant to paragraph 1 and Article 40(1) shall not be applicable to the procedure under Article 98 (2)e), provided it starts with sending an invitation to negotiate or with the commencement of the negotiations, to the procedure under Article 98 (4)c)-d) and the contractual phase of innovation partnership.

4. Contrary to Article 40 (1), electronic communication during the conduct of the tendering stage and the application of the electronic catalogue in accordance with Article 109 (5) and (11)-(14) may as well be arranged in an IT system different from the EPPS, in the design contest procedure, the direct purchasing order by the contracting authority based on the framework agreement and in the dynamic purchasing system.

5. Even in the cases under paragraphs (3)–(4), the contracting authority shall publish all the notices and record or publish via the EPPS all data that it is required to publish or record under this Act or its implementing regulations. If the procedure conducted pursuant to Article 98(2)(e) starts with the commencement of negotiations, the contracting authority shall record in the EPPS the documents comprising the measures taken and decisions made during the preparation and conduct of the procedure, including the negotiations, as soon as reasonably possible in a situation resulting in extreme urgency, but no later than after the conclusion of the procedure.

6. Where this Act or the implementation decree hereof permits the application of an IT system different from the EPPS, the provisions of Article 41/A-41/C concerning the EPPS shall be applicable to the applied IT system.

7. The mode of exercising the procedural actions electronically is regulated in a government decree which may differ from the provisions of this Act to the necessary extent, due to the electronic exercise of procedural actions.

Article 41/A

1. Where, based on this Act or a separate act of legislation based on the empowerment of this Act, the contracting authority requires the submission of a document during the procurement procedure, the document may be submitted with the use of the electronic form completed in the EPPS or, if no electronic form to the relevant document is available in the language of the statement, in the form of simple electronic copy of the hard-copy document. If the electronic form to the relevant document is not available in the language of the statement in the EPPS, the statement may as well be attached in the EPPS as a document supplied with an at least advanced electronic signature; however, the contracting authority shall not require the use of electronic signature, except the case in paragraph 2. Where the implementation decree of this Act requires the submission of a statement authenticated by a notary public or a technical or economic chamber, the document may be submitted as the simple electronic copy of a document authenticated in paper or in a form where the hard-copy statement or the statement made electronically and supplied with an at least advanced electronic signature is electronically supplied with an authentication clause by a notary public or a technical or economic chamber, including an at least advanced electronic signature and stamp.

2. The contracting authority may prescribe that a statement directly underlying the enforcement of a claim (in particular, declaration of guaranty or surety) shall meet the requirements of a private deed of full probative force under the code of civil procedure, as an electronic document.

3. Where a statement sample is available in the EPPS as an electronic form, in the language of submitting the statement, the statement shall be made as a part of the tender or the request to participate, by way of completing the electronic form. Where an electronic form of the relevant statement is available in the EPPS, it shall be completed even if the contracting authority allows the submission of the relevant statement in another language in the tender or the request to participate and the tenderer or candidate attaches a statement in a different language in the system. In this case, if the electronic form is completed in Hungarian, it shall be considered the translation of the attached statement.

4. In regard to a statement made electronically in the EPPS, the person with access and right to make a statement on behalf of the contracting authority or economic operator in the EPPS shall be considered the representative of the contracting authority or, for an economic operator submitting the tender or the request to participate in the system, the economic operator. In reference to this assumption, the electronic form completed in the EPPS shall be considered the original statement of the contracting authority or economic operator.

5. The statements that are expected to be made concurrent with the submission of the electronic form in the EPPS shall be made by the economic operator submitting the tender or the request to participate on behalf of the joint tenderers or candidates and the other organizations participating in the certification of suitability. The economic operator authorized to make the statements shall only be held liable for the agreement of the authorization and the statements, data made available to it with the statements made by it electronically; however, this rule does not apply to the joint and several liability of the joint tenderers pursuant to Article 35(6).

6. Where this Act or the implementation decree hereof prescribes the direct service of a document, it shall also imply the electronic accessibility of the document.

Article 41/B

1. During its operation, the EPPS shall ensure the equal opportunities of the economic operators, work with the generally available IT applications and shall not restrict the participation of the economic operators in the procurement procedure. The use of the EPPS may require the availability of generally used IT and electronic communications devices to the economic operators.

2. In order to be able to display the content of the documents submitted by the economic operators, the contracting authority sets the requirements concerning the properties, including in particular the file format of the electronic documents expected to be submitted in the system as an attachment, in the procurement documents. The requirements pursuant to paragraph 1 shall meet this specification of the contracting authority.

3. Contrary to paragraph 2, the contracting authority may, where necessary, require the economic operators to use applications and equipment that are not generally available, provided it facilitates alternative access to their use under one of the below conditions:

a) it offers unlimited and full direct access to these applications and equipment via electronic means, free of charge, from the date of publication of the notice launching the procedure and its delivery to the economic operators. The internet address where these applications and equipment are accessible shall be provided in the text of the notice launching the procedure;

b) it arranges that economic operators with no access to the relevant applications and equipment shall, provided the economic operator cannot be blamed for the lack of access, be in the position to take part in the procurement procedure with the use of temporary codes provided online, free of charge.

Article 41/C

1. Contrary to Article 41(1), the contracting authority may stipulate that communication by electronic means and the application of the EPPS shall not be compulsory if:

a) due to the specialized nature of the public procurement, communication by electronic means would require special equipment or file formats that are not generally available or are not supported by generally available applications;

b) the production of the tenders partly requires the use of file formats that cannot be managed with another open or generally available application or are subject to a proprietary licensing scheme, and the contracting authority cannot provide such in agreement with Article 41/B(3), with regard to the relevant parts of the tender;

c) the application of electronic communication would require the contracting authority to possess specialized office equipment that is generally not available to contracting authorities;

d) the contracting authority prescribes the submission of physical or scale models that cannot be forwarded by electronic means (regarding the model submitted); or

e)

f)

g) the procurement documents comprise business secret or qualified data or are confidential for a security or national security reason, and adequate protection cannot be ensured by applying the electronic form of communication generally available among economic operators.

2. The contracting authority shall indicate the reason for the need to use communication methods other than electronic means in the summary concerning the evaluation of tenders. Communication without the use of electronic means is only permissible for documents and parts of the tender for which the reasons specified in paragraph (1) apply. Communication without the use of electronic means, based on the reasons specified in paragraph (1), shall not be applicable to the data content included in the reading sheet at the time of tender submission.

3. If the contracting authority states, for a reason in paragraph 1, that communication by electronic means is not applicable, the documents and written statements on the procedural actions can be fulfilled, where this Act does not specifically require a communication form:

a) by postal delivery or direct delivery; or

b) by fax.

4.

5. Where communication via EPPS, pursuant to paragraph (1), cannot apply to the actions regulated in Article 79, Article 80, Article 87 (6), Article 117 (8) or Article 127 (1)-(2), communication in these procedural actions can only take a form outside the EPPS, by electronic means or by fax as regulated in paragraph (4).

6.

1. Contracting authorities defined in Article 5(1), with the exception of central purchasing bodies, shall draw up, at the beginning of the budgetary year, by 31 March at the latest, an annual overall public procurement plan (hereinafter referred to as ‘public procurement plan’), which shall outline all public procurements envisaged for the given year. The public procurement plan shall be retained by the contracting authority for a period of at least five years. Public procurement plans shall be made publicly available.

2. Contracting authorities may launch procurement procedures prior to the completion of the public procurement plan; those procedures shall be subsequently included in the public procurement plan, as appropriate.

3. The public procurement plan shall not entail any obligation to carry out the procedures for the award of contracts included therein. Contracting authorities may carry out procedures for the award of contracts not included in the procurement plan or for the award of contracts that have been modified as compared to what the plan contains. In such cases the public procurement plan shall be amended upon the occurrence of such a need or other changes, indicating the justification thereof.

4. Contracting authorities shall, upon request, forward their public procurement plans to the Public Procurement Authority or to the bodies empowered by an act of legislation to exercise control over the contracting authority.

5. The minimal data content of the public procurement plan is stipulated in a separate act of legislation based on the empowerment of this Act.

6. If the conditions set out in the Government Decree are met, the contracting authority shall–at the same time as preparing the public procurement plan, or, if it is not required to prepare a public procurement plan, by March 31 of the given year–publish an action plan that outlines the measures to be taken to enhance the level of competition in the public procurement procedures it conducts.

1. The contracting authority shall publish via the EPPS in the public electronic contract register (hereinafter: CoRe) maintained by the Public Procurement Authority, as well as in the EPPS, the following items:

a) all contracts concluded on the basis of Article 9(1)h)–(j) and Article 12(1)–(5) and any amendments to these contracts, without delay after contracting and after any contract amendment, respectively;

b) all contracts concluded based on the public procurement procedure, immediately after the publication of the notice pursuant to Article 37(1)(h)–or, in the case of contracts pursuant to Article 37(4), immediately after the conclusion of the contract–and any amendments to these contracts immediately after the publication of the notice under Article 37(1)(j);

c) the following data concerning the performance of the contract:

ca) a reference to the notice launching the procurement procedure (to the invitation, for procedures without prior publication of a contract notice);
cb) the name of the parties to the contract;
cc) the establishment whether the performance was in compliance with the contract;
cd) the date of the acknowledgement by the contracting authority of the performance of the contract; and
ce) the date of the payment of the consideration and the value of the paid consideration, within thirty days following the performance of the contract by each party or, in the case of public procurements carried out using subsidies, in the context of the payment of suppliers, following the performance by the entity which is obliged to make payment.

1a. The data reporting under paragraph 1 shall be done in the EPPS, which shall ensure the automatic transmission of the data to CoRe immediately after upload without any changes.

2. The contracting authority shall publish the following in the EPPS:

a) the public procurement plan and the amendment thereof, without any delay after approval;

b) the data concerning preliminary dispute settlement pursuant to Article 80(2), without any delay after the receipt of the preliminary dispute settlement application;

c) the summary concerning the requests to participate and the evaluation of tenders, concurrent with their dispatch to the candidates or the tenderers;

d) the documents pursuant to Article 103(6) and Article 115(7);

e) the following data related to the subcontractor involved in the performance of the contract:

ea) the name and tax number of the subcontractor, the part of the public contract for which the tenderer intends to use the specific subcontractor, the expected percentage of the subcontractor's performance within the tenderer's performance and the value of the consideration as specified in the subcontract – within 30 days of the notification of the subcontractor by the successful tenderer, and
eb) the actual percentage of subcontractor's performance within the tenderer's performance, the date of performance of the consideration and the value of the consideration paid – at the same time as the data referred to in paragraph 1(c) are recorded;

f) the fact of establishing the termination, cancellation or invalidity of the contract, the fact that the contract concluded pursuant to Article 135(12) has not entered into force – within thirty days of the date on which the contract was terminated, cancelled, declared invalid or failed to enter into force.

3. The data specified in paragraph (1)-(2) are qualified as data to be published in the public interest, and their disclosure may not be prohibited by invoking business secrecy. However, where the tender is annexed to the contract by the parties, Article 44 shall apply to the public nature of the tender.

4. The public procurement plan defined in paragraph 2(a) shall be accessible until the publication of the public procurement plan regarding the following year in the EPPS.

5. The data, information and documents specified in paragraph 2 (b)-(c) shall be accessible at least for the period specified in Article 46 (2).

6. The contracts specified in paragraph 1(a)-(b) shall be accessible at least for five years of performance.

7. The information specified in paragraph 1(c) shall be updated annually from the time of concluding the contract, in the case of contracts concluded for more than one year or an indefinite period.

1. Economic operators may prohibit the release of documents containing business secrets (including know-how) [Article 1 of Act LIV of 2018 on the Protection of Trade Secrets], which are included separately in their tender, request to participate, supply of missing information or provision of information, furthermore inthe explanation pursuant to Article 72 of this Act. The documents containing business secrets shall only contain pieces of information that, if made public, would be unreasonably detrimental to the business activities conducted by the economic operator. A justification shall be annexed by the economic operator to the separate document containing business secrets for demonstrating in detail why and how the given pieces of information or data, if made public, would be unreasonably detrimental to the economic operator. The justification given by the economic operator is not satisfactory, if it only offers generalities.[1]

2. For the purposes of paragraph 1, the following information may not be claimed to be a business secret:

a) any information, data that can be accessed by everyone on an electronic, official or any other register,

b) data public on grounds of public interest according to Article 27 (3) of the Act CXII of 2011 on the Right of Informational Self-determination and on Freedom of Information,

c) as regards the certification of suitability, any information and data presented by the tenderer or candidate

(ca) in relation to the conclusion, contents and execution of former public contracts as well as works or service concessions specified by this Act,

(cb) in relation to machines, equipment, installations, professionals, certificates, labels,

d) description of the supplies, works, services specified in the tender, excluding that clearly identified element of the description which fulfils, as demonstrated by the justification given by the tenderer, the conditions set out in paragraph 1,

e) where requested by the contracting authority, the professional tender of the tenderer, excluding a clearly identified element of the professional tender which fulfils, as demonstrated by the justification given by the tenderer, the conditions set out in paragraph 1 and in case of which there is no obstacle to being considered as business secret according to paragraph 3.

3. Economic operators may not prohibit the public release of their name, address (seat, residence) or any fact, information, solution or data (hereinafter jointly referred to as ‘data’) to be evaluated under the award criteria according to Article 76, but they have the right to prohibit the public release of basic data, partial information not covered by paragraph 2 (such as in particular the priced budget) which serve as the basis of the data mentioned above.

4. If, when declaring the specified information and data to be business secret, the economic operator has failed to comply with paragraph 1-3, the contracting authority shall, in the course of the request for missing information, invite the economic operator concerned to submit a document with the appropriate contents.

1. After the dispatch of the summary concerning the evaluation of tenders or requests to participate, the tenderer or candidate participating in the given procedure may ask within five days the most to have access to those parts of the tender or request to participate of another economic operator, including the supply of missing information, provision of requested information as well as provision of explanation, which do not contain business secrets. The economic operator shall indicate in the request for access to documents the alleged infringement in relation to which the access is requested and those parts of the tender or request to participate which he is asking to have access to. Access to documents shall be provided during office hours, within two days after reception of such request. The contracting authority shall offer access to documents to the extent necessary to ensure enforcement of the right related to the alleged infringement indicated by the economic operator. In the framework of the access to documents, there is no possibility to carry out full examination of the tender or request to participate of another economic operator.

2. On request by a tenderer submitting an admissible tender, after sending the results of the procedure, the contracting authority shall provide specific information regarding the features of the winning tender and its advantages over the tender submitted by him and in the case of negotiated procedures, competitive dialogues and innovation partnerships, regarding the negotiations and the dialogue conducted with the tenderers, within five business days from receiving the request, taking into consideration the winning tenderer’s interests regarding business secrecy.

3. If the contracting authority refuses access to certain documents under paragraph 1 or refuses to provide information under paragraph 2 on the grounds of the commercial confidentiality interests of the economic operator concerned by the request, it shall–in accordance with the procedure adopted by it under Article 44(1)–communicate to the economic operator making the request the reasons for handling the information concerned as business secrets and–while maintaining the confidentiality of the information–the essential nature of the information considered as business secrets.

1. Contracting authorities shall arrange for the documentation of their procurement procedures, covering the procedures from the preparatory work up to the performance of the contract concluded on the basis of those procedures, in writing.

2. Contracting authorities shall retain all documents created in the course of the preparation and conduct of the procurement procedure for a period of at least five years following the closure of the procedure [Article 37 (2)] and all documents created in relation to the performance of the contract for a period of at least five years following the performance of the contract. If a procedure has been launched to seek legal remedy in connection with the public procurement, the documents shall be kept until the expiry of the term for challenging the decision of the Public Procurement Arbitration Board or, in the case of an administrative proceeding, until the final conclusion of the administrative proceeding, but at least for five years. The contracting authority shall keep the data in the EPPS at least for this period of time, or if an act of legislation prescribes a longer term to keep the document, for the prescribed longer period.

3. Contracting authorities shall, upon request by the Public Procurement Authority or other bodies empowered by an act of legislation, make the documents concerning public procurement accessible to those bodies by electronic means, as stipulated in an act of legislation.

4. In the interest of availability of statistical data concerning public procurements, an act of legislation based on the empowerment of this Act can define the range of data, which are not qualified as personal data, for the contracting authority to be recorded in the EPPS in regard to the specific public procurement, apart from the data prescribed in this Act.

4a. The minister responsible for public procurement processes the following personal data in the EPPS:

a) for the purpose of system management, and for the legal control of public procurement and concession procedures and their amendments, the identification data and contact information, identification data related to the procedure of state public procurement consultants, data on the non-existence of exclusion grounds, data concerning infringements that qualify as exclusion grounds in public procurement, the natural identification data of persons indicated in the tender or request to participate for the selection of the most economically advantageous tender based on the evaluation of suitability and award criteria, as well as data on education and qualifications, professional experience, membership in organizations and public bodies, membership in business associations, and log data related to procedural actions;

b) identification data and data for keeping contact for identifying, registering users, for granting access required for the system;

c) data needed for accounting registration of the system usage fee and for purposes related to invoicing.

4b) The minister responsible for public procurement may transfer the data generated and recorded in the EPPS during the performance and amendment of public procurements or contracts to the following persons acting within their scope of duties defined by law:

a) courts conducting their ongoing proceedings;

b) prosecution and investigative authorities conducting their criminal proceedings;

c) national security services for detecting the crimes specified by law, national security protection and counterintelligence, and intelligence gathering tasks;

d) internal crime prevention and detection departments of the police as defined by the law on the police, for the prevention and detection of crimes within their competence;

e) the Hungarian Competition Authority for protecting economic competition, including the detection of competition law violations, particularly agreements restricting competition, and clarification of the facts of the case;

f) other authorities entitled by law to receive such data, for the purpose of clarifying the facts of the case in proceedings before them, upon request.

(4c) Access to the documents of the procurement procedure in the EPPS is provided by the contracting authority to the body authorised to monitor public procurements, the Integrity Authority, and the Public Procurement Arbitration Board, or the court acting in the course of a public procurement appeal.

5. In the interest of meeting the responsibilities related to the operation of the EPPS, the personal data recorded in the EPPS during conducting public procurement procedures may be processed for the period stipulated in point (2).

1. Where this Act prescribes that minutes shall be drawn up in the course of the procurement procedure, this criterion may also be fulfilled by recording the actions in a public document provided that the actions take place in the presence of a notary public.

2. In the case of documents not submitted in Hungarian, the liable translation produced by the tenderer shall also be accepted by the contracting authority.

2a. Where tenders are submitted entirely on paper and where, pursuant to this Act or to a regulation made under this Act, the contracting authority requires the submission of a document during a procurement procedure, the document may be submitted in a simple copy, unless otherwise provided by a legal regulation. The contracting authority may require the submission of originals or–if permitted by the contracting authority–certified copies of statements that directly serve as the basis for the enforcement of a claim (particularly, declarations of guarantee or surety). One original copy of the tender submitted pursuant to Article 68(2) shall contain the original signed copy of the declaration pursuant to Article 66(2).

3. If the certificate required by this Act is non-existent in the country outside the European Union where the tenderer is established, contracting authorities may accept a certificate or a document that is equal to that certificate.

1. For the purposes of the time limits stipulated by this Act, the time limits or periods (hereinafter jointly referred to as ‘time limits’) expressed in days, months or years shall be calculated in such a manner that they do not include the starting date. The starting date shall be the date of the event or other circumstances from which the time limit begins to run.

2. A time limit expressed in months or years shall expire on the day which corresponds to the date following that of the starting date; if the month of expiry does not contain such a date, expiry shall take place on the last day of the month.

3. Where the closing date of the time limit is not a business day, expiry shall take place only on the subsequent business day.

4. Time limits indicated in notices (invitations) shall begin to run on the day following the date of dispatch of the relevant notice (invitation) or on the date of the direct sending of the invitation.

5. Paragraphs 1 to 3 shall also apply to the calculation of the validity period and the period specified in Article 131(6).