Background The uptake of green public procurement in the Czech Republic is known to lag behind the European standards. We trace this condition back to the adverse effects of a specific type of decision-making trade-off faced by the Czech public procurement officials, namely the trade-off between stewardship and administrative compliance. The trade-off means that public procurers are aware of administrative risks and complications attendant on the conscientious non-perfunctory implementation of green public procurement. Results The overall result is that public procurers ultimately come to prioritize the contract criterion of the lowest price over ecological criteria. The existence of this trade-off has been generally confirmed by the results of a unique large-N survey of more than 1100 respondents from a group of local public officials and mayors in the Czech Republic. Conclusion We have found that the decision-making of Czech public procurers is affected by the trade-off between stewardship and administrative compliance, which turn out to be mutually conflicting goals. On the one hand, many public procurers do possess a stewardship motivation that shapes their positive attitude to GPP. On the other hand, they are painfully aware of, and seek to forestall, administrative risks and complications attendant on the conscientious, i.e., non-perfunctory, implementation of GPP.

Public procurement is a crucial activity undertaken by the public sector. However, public procurement entails a wide range of transaction costs. While many papers focus on the ex-ante transaction costs, it is equally important to evaluate the types of ex-post transaction costs. Th e disputes stemming from confl icts between procuring authorities and proposers oft en bring additional costs to both parties. One of the ways to ensure that the procuring authority wins the dispute is using the services of an external law fi rm to represent the procuring authority in the review process. Th e aim of the paper is to examine the extent of the use of external law services in the public-procurement review process by procuring authorities and proposers in Slovakia and in the Czech Republic. Th e focus is also on the impact the use of external law fi rms in the review process may have on the length of the review process and the outcome of the dispute. Our results suggest that while the use of the external law fi rm may lead to a higher success rate of the review process on the side of a procuring authority, the same does not apply to proposers. Th ere were no conclusive fi ndings regarding the impact of the outsourcing on the length of the review process.

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