Public Procurement and Government Contracts

Public contracts make up a significant share of the global economy, giving public entities a route to the best value-for-money goods, works, and services from private businesses. Public procurement is also one of the more procedurally demanding areas of commercial law to work in — it requires lawyers with genuinely extensive knowledge of the domestic regulations governing how government buys, not just general contract expertise applied to a government counterparty.

 

Bhandari Law advises foreign and domestic companies on every aspect of government contracts in Nepal — from conducting due diligence on a government project, through the tendering procedure itself, to drafting and reviewing the resulting government contract, and implementing it in line with the applicable rules.

 

The Legal Framework

Public procurement in Nepal is governed primarily by the Public Procurement Act, 2063 (2007) and the Public Procurement Regulation, 2064 (2007), which together set out the procedures for procuring goods, construction works, consultancy services, and other services by public entities. The Act establishes the Public Procurement Monitoring Office (PPMO), which oversees the procurement system, issues standard bidding documents and manuals, and works to keep procurement proceedings compliant and transparent across government. A Public Procurement Review Committee is also constituted under the Act specifically to handle review of procurement decisions and processes.

 

The Act prescribes different bidding methods depending on the scale and nature of a procurement — National Competitive Bidding and International Competitive Bidding each carry their own validity periods for bids and bid security, generally running somewhere between 45 and 150 days depending on the method and the specific requirement. Section 58 of the Act is the provision that matters most once a dispute actually arises: it makes arbitration the required route for resolving procurement contract disputes where amicable settlement has failed, which is precisely why procurement litigation in Nepal so often ends up running through arbitration rather than the ordinary courts. Local-level procurement additionally intersects with the Local Government Operation Act, 2074 (2017), given how much procurement activity now happens at the provincial and municipal level following federalization.

 

What We Do

 

Procurement due diligence

We conduct due diligence on government projects before a client commits resources to bidding or executing a contract.

 

Tendering procedure advisory

We advise clients through the tendering procedure itself, helping them navigate the Act's bidding, qualification, and evaluation requirements.

 

Government contract drafting and review

We draft and review government contracts, built to withstand both regulatory scrutiny and the practical realities of implementation.

 

Contract implementation advisory

We advise clients on implementing government contracts in accordance with the applicable rules, which matters just as much as getting the contract awarded in the first place.

 

Bid protests

We represent clients in bid protests at both the pre-award and post-award stage, where a tender process is contested.

 

Procurement litigation and arbitration

We represent clients in public procurement litigation and arbitration disputes, drawing on extensive litigation experience to help clients avoid disputes where possible — and, where a tender is genuinely contested, to either challenge an award decision or defend the procuring authority's position.

 

Who We Represent

Our service isn't limited to private bidders. We provide the same depth of advice to government departments, public bodies, and utilities, and we advise across federal, provincial, and local levels of government in Nepal. Our public procurement lawyers in Nepal help clients set objectives, choose the right legal approach, and manage the process from tender through to contract award and implementation — whichever side of the procurement table a client sits on.