1. Contracting authorities and contracting entities shall indicate in the contract notice, in the invitation to submit tenders or in the concession documents a description of the concession, the award criteria and the minimum requirements to be met. This information must allow to identify the nature and scope of the concession, enabling economic operators to decide whether they request to participate in the concession award procedure. The description, award criteria and minimum requirements shall not be changed in the course of the negotiations.
2. During the concession award, contracting authorities and contracting entities shall ensure the equal treatment of all tenderers. In particular, they shall not provide information in a discriminatory manner which may give some tenderers an advantage over others.
3. Whenever the contracting authority or contracting entity limits the number of applicants to an appropriate level, this shall be done in a transparent manner and on the basis of objective criteria which are available to all interested economic operators.
4. The rules on the organisation of the concession award procedure, including rules on communication, on the stages of the procedure and on timing, shall be established in advance and communicated to all participants
5. Where the concession award involves negotiation, contracting authorities or contracting entities shall comply with the following rules:
(a) where the negotiation takes place after the submission of tenders they shall negotiate with tenderers the tenders submitted by them in order to adapt them to the criteria and requirements indicated in accordance with paragraph 1.
(b) they shall not reveal to the other participants solutions proposed or other confidential information communicated by a candidate participating in the negotiations without its agreement. This agreement shall not take the form of a general waiver but must be given with reference to the intended communication of specific solutions or other confidential information;
(c) they may conduct the negotiation in successive stages in order to reduce the number of tenders to be negotiated by applying the award criteria in the contract notice, in the invitation to submit tenders or in the concession documents. In the contract notice, the invitation to submit tenders or the concession documents, the contracting authority shall indicate whether it has had recourse to this option.
(d) they shall assess the tenders as negotiated on the basis of the initially indicated award criteria;
(e) they shall establish a written record of formal deliberations and any other steps and events relevant for the concession award procedure. In particular, it shall ensure, by all appropriate means, the traceability of the negotiations.
6. Contracting authorities and contracting entities shall as soon as possible inform each candidate and tenderer of decisions reached concerning the award of a concession including the grounds for any decision not to award a contract for which there has been publication of a concession notice or to recommence the procedure.
7. On request from the party concerned, the contracting authority shall as quickly as possible, and in any case within 15 days from receipt of a written request, inform:
(a) any unsuccessful candidates of the reasons for the rejection of their application,
(b) any unsuccessful tenderers of the reasons for the rejection of their tender, including, for the cases referred to in Article 32 (5) and (6), the reasons for its decision of non-equivalence or its decision that the works, supplies or services do not meet the performance or functional requirements,
(c) any tenderers that have made an admissible tender of the characteristics and relative advantages of the tender selected as well as the name of the successful tenderer or the parties to the framework agreement,
(d) any tenderers that have made an admissible tender of the conduct and progress of negotiations and dialogue with tenderers.
8. However, contracting authorities may decide to withhold certain information referred to in paragraph 6, regarding the contract where the release of such information would impede law enforcement, would otherwise be contrary to the public interest, would prejudice the legitimate commercial interests of economic operators, whether public or private, or might prejudice fair competition between them.