Abstract
The article deals with the issue of public procurement in the field of IT, where due to vendor lock-in, contracting authorities are often forced to award contracts for the development and extension of IT system in the negotiated procedure without prior publication, which virtually lacks an element of competition. However, Office for the Protection of Competition does not like it.
It often favours the protection of competition over the effective, economical and efficient public spending, without balancing these two main sectoral principles by performing the proportionality test. This leads to actual paralysis of contracting authorities who find themselves in a hopeless situation.
The author suggest that the Czech Republic should take an example from European countries where the problem of vendor lock-in is successfully tackled and adopt legal solutions. She proposes, inter alia, to set the period for which the supplier will be authorized to operate an IT system and provide its maintenance, development and servicing.
The author concludes that the inaction of the state in finding a system solution will lead to the inactivity of the contracting authorities.