The Argentine Republic has a federalist government system: the country is divided into several provinces and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, which have the power to approve their own constitutions and legislate, within their territories, on matters not delegated to the National Government. At the same time, the provinces have also granted certain specific powers to municipalities.

Provinces, the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires and municipalities establish their own public procurement regulations. However, they are usually similar to those established at the national level.

As a general rule, the following legislation (jointly, the “Public Procurement Regime”) applies, at the national level, to all procurement procedures:

1. Contracting Regime for the National Public Administration, approved by Executive Order No. 1023/2001;
2. Rules of the Contracting Regime for the National Public Administration, approved by Executive Order No. 1030/2016;
3. National Public Administration Contracting Procedures Handbook, approved by National Contracting Office’s Disposition No. 62/2016;
4. General Terms and Conditions, approved by National Contracting Office’s Disposition No. 63/2016;
5. Public Administration’s Providers Database Registration Handbook, approved by National Contracting Office’s Disposition No. 64/2016;
6. National Administration Contracting Electronic System COMPR.AR, approved by National Contracting Office’s Disposition No. 65/2016; and
7. National Administration Contracting Electronic System CONTRAT.AR Procedure Handbook, approved by Executive Order No. 1336/2016.

Note that many of these rules may apply even when the documents for a particular bid do not expressly mention them.

Besides, a particular governmental contract is also regulated by specific and ad hoc rules, namely:

1. the Specific Terms and Conditions;
2. the winning bidder’s offer;
3. the samples submitted;
4. the governmental decision awarding the contract (adjudicación); and
5. the terms of the contract or the purchase order.

In addition, the Buy Argentinean Act (Law No. 25,551) applies to all public contracting procedures, and obliges specific authorities and entities to, under certain conditions, grant preference to the acquisition or hiring of national goods and services and to comply with certain publicity obligations during their contracting procedures.

Also, there is specific legislation for certain contracts, such as concession agreements (Law No. 17,520), public-private partnerships (Law No. 27,328) and contracts for the construction of public works and infrastructure (Law No. 13,064).

Finally, many public utilities and public interest activities (e.g., electricity and natural gas transportation and distribution, water provision, oil exploitation) are subject to special regulatory regimes, which usually include specific procurement provisions.

Argentina is a member of the Mercosur Customs Union together with Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay (Venezuela is in the process of joining). By means of Decision 23/06 of the Common Market Council (Consejo Mercado Común), a Protocol on Government Purchases was approved. As of November 2011, it has only been ratified by Argentina. Furthermore, Decisions 23/10 and 9/11 of the Common Market Council have ordered a review of the Protocol in order to update it. Thus, the Protocol is still not in place and it is not clear when it will enter into force.

The purpose of the Protocol is to set the basic rules on public procurement in the member states. Those rules include: transparency, impartiality, equality, due process, publicity, and non-discrimination of companies of other member states in governmental purchases.

The Protocol will apply, in principle, to purchases by all kinds of governmental entities, both at the national and provincial level.

The basic underlying principles of the legal framework are the following:

• equal treatment to all bidders;
• effective competition between the potential and current bidders;
• transparency and publicity of the procedure;
• reasonableness and efficiency of the procedure; and

accountability of public officers authorizing, approving and managing public contracts.

As a general rule, regulation and jurisdiction over aerospace and defense matters are powers granted to the National Government. At the national level, aerospace and defense procurement are not treated differently from other types of procurement. Hence, the same general regulatory framework explained in Section 1(a) above would apply.

The National Government could acquire aerospace or defense products or services without a public bidding procedure, for example, in cases of duly proven and grounded urgency or emergency reasons or cases where the purchase should be kept secret because of national defense or security purposes (see Section 3(a) below for further details).