Up until the judgment in a French case called Roanne dated 18 January 2007, the development industry took the view that a public works contracts was a building contract and that a development agreement was a land transaction, the latter being outside the EU Procurement Regime. However, following Roanne, (which decided that a contract with a public authority, which, on the face of it, appeared to contain all of the hallmarks of a traditional development agreement, amounted to a public works contract), the industry panicked with the result that a number of major development projects with local authorities were put on hold or scrapped and an expensive new EU procurement compliant competition commenced.
The European Commission, following the Roanne decision, also became somewhat over zealous in seeking to extend the definition of "public works contract" to catch virtually any land transaction entered into with a public authority which involved delivery of major generation or renewal. Concerns have also been raised that section 106 agreements might be at risk of challenge as public works contracts.