Article 27 — Termination of R&D procurement contracts
In brief
This article requires public buyers to terminate an R&D procurement contract in defined situations, without prejudice to other termination grounds in the Act or under national law. Termination is mandatory where the operator is finally convicted on one of the mandatory exclusion grounds, or where the contract or its modification should not have been awarded because of a serious infringement declared by the Court of Justice.
Key points
- These grounds apply in addition to any other termination grounds in the Act or under applicable national law.
- Termination is required where the economic operator becomes subject to a final conviction for one of the mandatory exclusion grounds referred to in Article 13, unless the buyer establishes that termination is not warranted for overriding public interest and the final judgment does not preclude this.
- Termination is also required where the contract or its modification should not have been awarded, in view of a serious infringement of the Treaties and this Regulation declared by the Court of Justice of the European Union in a procedure under Article 258 TFEU.
What it means in practice
Public buyers must monitor for these events and end the contract when they arise, subject to the narrow overriding-public-interest qualification for the conviction ground. Contractors should be aware that a final conviction on mandatory exclusion grounds, or a Court of Justice ruling that the award was improper, can bring the R&D contract to an end regardless of performance.
Official text — Article 27 (COM(2026) 567)
Source: European Commission, proposal for a Regulation establishing the European Innovation Act, COM(2026) 567 final, 9 September 2026. Read the official proposal (PDF). Text may change during the legislative process.
Anthony Bochon’s analysis
This closing provision of the chapter is deliberately narrow, and rightly so: beyond any national-law or other grounds, it makes termination mandatory in only two situations — a final conviction on one of the mandatory exclusion grounds of Article 13, and a serious infringement of Treaty and Regulation obligations declared by the Court of Justice in an Article 258 procedure. My reading is that the drafters wanted to reserve compulsory termination for cases of established, adjudicated wrongdoing rather than administrative suspicion, which is consistent with the proportionality that must attend so severe a remedy in an R&D setting where continuity of research has real value.
The detail I would draw to a buyer’s attention is the overriding public interest carve-out in point (a), permitting the contract to continue despite a mandatory exclusion conviction where termination is not warranted and the judgment does not preclude it. That is a sensible safety valve — one thinks of R&D that is itself in the public interest to complete — but it will demand a carefully reasoned and documented decision; addressees should anticipate that any reliance on this exception will be closely scrutinised by audit and review bodies.