The complainant, a non-governmental organisation, raised concerns with the European Commission related to a the award of a contract for a study on EU policy on business mergers to a private consultancy specialised in competition law. In particular, the complainant was concerned that the Commission had failed to properly assess the risk of conflicts of interest with the consultancy that was awarded the contract.

In the course of the inquiry, the Commission terminated the contract because it considered that the outcome of the contract might be perceived as biased. In view of this, the Ombudsman decided that no further inquiries into the issues raised in the complaints were justified.

However, the Ombudsman's inquiry also assessed changes made by the Commission to its internal guidance for staff working on procurement on how to assess ‘professional conflicting interests’, which followed a suggestion made by the Ombudsman in a previous inquiry. The Ombudsman welcomed the changes made and committed to continue monitoring this area.