European Union – Public procurement. The Court of Justice of the European Union made a preliminary ruling in which it held that, on a proper construction of art 2d(4) of Directive 89/665, where a public contract was awarded without prior publication of a contract notice in the Official Journal of the European Union, but that was not permissible under Directive 2004/18, the contract could not be declared ineffective, if the conditions laid down in that provision were, in fact, satisfied, which it was for the referring court to determine.