Judicial Review in Public-Private Business Contracts in Egypt Evidence from Administrative Court Rulings in Government Tenders and Bids Law Disputes

This paper examines the role that administrative court review in Egypt plays in supporting the integrity of public-private business relations. The paper uses court rulings related to Government Tenders and Bids Law during administrative contract implementation to assess whether 1- government authorities are more likely to receive a favorable ruling, 2- whether award-to-claim ratios are higher in government-initiated cases, and 3- whether average judicial dispute settlement time differs between contractor versus administrative authority claims. I use rulings data on some 470 cases from East Laws Network to construct variables for dispute characteristics and outcomes. Analysis shows that government authorities have higher odds of a favorable award of the main disputed value or in composite claims, compared to contractors. Plaintiff identity does not affect award odds for compensation or interest claims while plaintiffs’ inclusion of an interest or compensation claim increases the odds of main value award ratios. For the fraction of claim value awarded, administrative authorities receive a larger fraction of the claim and the difference is larger the wider the composite claim measure is. Similar to odds of award ratios, the expected award to claim value increases with inclusion of interest or compensation claims when filing, but relating award to a measure that includes a specified compensation claim reduces the expected award to claim fraction. For judicial dispute settlement time, results show that contractor-plaintiff cases take less time to resolve in court relative to administration-initiated cases. Economy-wide variables, institutional administrative court restructuring and a variety of dispute characteristics affect dispute resolution time, where their effect on dispute outcomes is generally negligible. The overall analysis suggests that plaintiffs are partially successful in applying law principles when claiming interest and compensation to improve dispute outcomes. Bias in favor of administrative authorities remains, however, suggesting that it is likely the outcome of the combined discretionary room for administrative authorities in the Government Tenders and Bids Law and discretionary room that courts have in Civil Law principles governing compensation and interest awards. Both increase administrative authorities’ chances and size of a positive award, but do not indicate a certain outcome that dissuades contractors completely from resorting to court in case of dispute.