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Article 51 of the new Italian Public Procurement Code, Decree-Law no. 50 of 2016, provides that, in order to help small and medium enterprises, contracting authorities have to divide contracts into lots.

Nevertheless, art. 51 also states that contracting authorities may avoid dividing contracts into lots by giving a proper motivation, which has to be indicated in the contract notice or in the invitation to confirm interest.

With judgment of 12th December 2016, no. 1755, the TAR Toscana has observed that point 78 of Directive 2014/24/EU allows such derogation, where the division into lots could risk rendering the execution of a contract excessively difficult or expensive.

In the case under the scrutiny of the TAR Toscana, the contracting authority had not divided the contract into lots, in order to limit the costs of execution.

Notwithstanding the recent entry into force of the new Public Procurement Code, the difficulty of mediating between two different objectives has already emerged: on the one hand, guaranteeing the participation of small and medium enterprises in the procurement procedures; on the other hand, assuring rationalization and control of costs through the centralization and aggregation of those procedures.