International contractors
Contractors and concessionaires performing Portuguese public contracts, facing a counterpart with new monitoring duties and new positions on modification and change of circumstances.
Article 290-A of the Portuguese Public Contracts Code
Once the contract is signed, the part nobody documents begins.
Portuguese public procurement is organised around contract formation. Performance — where the money is actually spent, where deadlines slip and where disputes originate — runs without method. The 2026 reform made that gap legally relevant.
290-A
Governing provision
3 years
Duration triggering indicators
30 days
Tacit approval of subcontracting
1 Oct 2026
Applies to live contracts
Context
A function the Code created and practice hollowed out
The contract manager has existed in Portuguese law since 2017. The 2026 reform gave the role duties that can be verified against documents.
In established practice, appointment of a contract manager became largely a formality: a name in the contract or in an internal order, without allocated time, instruments or reporting procedure. Performance continued to be monitored informally by whoever was closest to the subject matter.
The 2026 reform made that untenable, because it attached verifiable duties to the role. It is no longer enough that a manager has been appointed: it can be checked, against documents, whether indicators were prepared, whether deviations were reported, whether that was done in a reasoned report, and whether the person was in a position of impartiality. Each of those is an audit checkpoint.
The reform also opened a door that did not exist before: in exceptional and duly reasoned cases, the public contracting party may contract out the management of the contract to a third party (article 290-A(6)).
Audience
Who we work with
Holders of long-duration contracts
Amendments on objective modification and dispute resolution apply to contracts already in performance irrespective of when they were entered into, without transitional adaptation.
Advisers on claims and disputes
Voluntary arbitration and technical conciliation committees, with interruption of limitation periods, open routes that did not exist for latent disputes.
Contracting entities without capacity
Entities that cannot monitor technically complex contracts internally and may, in exceptional and reasoned cases, contract the function out.
Services
How we work
Our services are delivered in Portuguese and in English. The full catalogue, with technical sheets, timelines and indicative fees, is published on the Portuguese-language domain.
Contract manager training
Three modules producing the entity's own indicator library and deviation report template.
Performance indicator library
Quantitative and qualitative indicators by contract type, with formula, source, frequency and alert threshold.
Contract management manual
Approved procedure covering performance from signature to termination, with templates and audit trail.
Modification and change of circumstances review
What changed in contracts already running, contract by contract.
Performing a Portuguese public contract?
The rules on modification and on dispute resolution changed for contracts already in performance. Knowing what changed in yours is a matter of weeks, not months.