In the complex tangle of public procurement, arranging a tailor-made tender is often the quickest route to secure a specific service. However, Las Palmas port bureaucracy has just produced one of those administrative paradoxes that are hard to explain: the Port Authority set up an exclusive procurement with just one invited company to be awarded a sponsorship contract worth €150,000, but the successful bidder did not show up. On 27 July, a court ruling was issued: the contract is negotiated without advertising and declared void.
The case was initiated on 3 July 2026, when Beatriz Calzada, president of the port institution, approved the opening of a negotiated procedure without prior public notice to sponsor the sector event ‘Seatrade Cruise Med 2026’. The contract, with a budget of €150,000 (rising to €160,500 after adding IGIC), was intended to cover promotion activities through October 2026. Because it was a procedure with no public competition, the administration went directly to the market to invite a specific firm: Global Ports Canary Islands, the Turkish operator of the cruise terminal.
The Public Sector Procurement Platform formally notified the company of the invitation on 6 July, setting a deadline of 14:00 on 21 July to receive the commercial proposal. After the deadline passed, and the next day the Contracting Board met to carry out the formal opening process, officials found — to their surprise — that the electronic mailbox was completely empty. The only entity invited to receive the monetary amount did not register any documentation or submit any offer.
With no room for negotiation and no competitors or alternative proposals on the table, the Contracting Board had to certify the commercial no-show and raised an urgent resolution proposal. The process has been formally closed through a resolution issued by Beatriz Calzada herself, in which she officially declares the sponsorship contract void. An unusual outcome in which the administration effectively rolled out the red carpet — but the invited bidder forgot to attend. Will the contract be tendered again? Of course.
The story Las Palmas port authority invites a single bidder for a €150,000 deal — and the company fails to respond was published first on canarymaritime.com.
