On 24 November 2005, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) gave its judgment on a reference for a preliminary ruling from an Italian court on the interpretation of the provisions relating to award criteria in the public procurement directives. The ECJ ruled that a contracting authority can attach specific weight to the subheadings of an award criterion, which were defined in advance, provided that this does not alter the criteria for the award of the contract as set out in the contract documents, does not contain new elements and does not give rise to discrimination against one of the tenderers.