Direct action and direct payments in public works subcontracting

1. The disappearance of direct action in administrative contracting
 
The subcontractor’s direct action against a contracting authority had already been removed from public procurement legislation with Act 24/2011 and then, in its recast version of 2011, under art. 227(8). This exclusion is repeated today by art. 215(4) LCSP. Civil case law has always recognised the appropriateness of this action in subcontracts generated in procurement procedures prior to those dates (cf. Judgment of the Supreme Court [STS] of 30 April 2017), and this appropriateness has been maintained even very recently (STS of 23 November 2014). Thus, nothing would have changed with the 2017 Act if it were not for the new regulation of "direct payments" to the subcontractor contained in the 51st Additional Provision, which will be the subject matter of this commentary...