The main novelty of this year at the State Agency for Dispute Resolution (ANSC) is the state fee introduced for appeals in public procurement procedures. Starting from June 16, 2025, one of the criteria for admissibility of the filed appeals is the payment of a state fee of 0.5% of the estimated value of the procedure, but not more than 50,000 lei. The state fee is refunded to the economic entity in case of a favorable decision – fully or partially – by the ANSC. This ensures that appellants are refunded in case their right, recognized as violated, was restored and the decision to accept the appeal was issued.
Ironically, with the introduction of the fee, the total number of appeals filed has increased. In the first 9 months of 2025, the estimated value of contested procedures amounted to 7,732.71 million lei (768 procedures), compared to 4,487.47 million lei (659 procedures) in the same period of 2024.
Since June 16, 2025, from the date of introduction, the total amount of fees paid was MDL 3,962,487, the amount of fees to be refunded was MDL 2,079,355. Thus, the amount remaining in the state budget amounted to 1,883,132 lei.
“That is, the state budget should receive additional revenues of 1.9 million lei, at least for the first three months. We can say that you have become one of the contributors to the increase of state budget revenues. And this is also good,” said Viorica Verdes, head of department at ANSC, at a roundtable with economic actors.
Olga Pisarenco, Head of Department at the National Bank of Moldova, believes that the fee should be calculated not from the estimated value of the procedure, but from the value of the contested lots. In this context, it was noted that sometimes the state fee exceeds the value of the lot itself.
Gheorghe Ghidora, Appeals Counselor, noted that the purpose of the fee was to reduce the number of appeals “filed for the sake of filing, which generally delay the procurement procedure”.
“Logic suggests that the fee should be calculated on the value of the lot, but we must realize that if there can be such a change, it is only by preserving the original purpose,” the ANSC spokesperson said.
As previously reported by Logos Pres, the decision to set the fee for filing an appeal was approved by Parliament this summer. The argument was the increasing number of appeals for reasons unrelated to the violation of the rights of bidders. Too many appeals filed in public procurement cases led to delays in the implementation of contracts.
In the near future, the agency will focus on digitalization – the introduction of an information system that will optimize both the mechanism for filing appeals and the process of reviewing them and monitoring the implementation of decisions.
