On 24 January 2008, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) handed down a ruling on a preliminary reference from a Greek court relating to the interpretation of the old Public Services Contracts Directive (Directive 92/50). The ECJ ruled that a contracting authority is not able to stipulate at a later date the weighting factors and sub-criteria to be applied to the award criteria that have been set out in the contract documents or contract notice. It also held that a contracting authority is precluded from taking into account as "award criteria" the tenderers' experience, manpower and equipment, or their ability to perform the contract by the anticipated deadline. These factors should be taken into account only as "qualitative selection criteria".