Limited Public Authorisations and Grants - What Bard, Betfair and BNR Have in Common

Abstract

Governments are increasingly occupied with the allocation, in several policy areas, of so‐called ‘limited public rights’. These rights, such as authorisations and grants, for which there are more applicants than available rights, are to be granted by the public administration. Typical of these rights is that a limit is determined beforehand to the number of the rights to be allocated. Limiting the number of available public rights may give rise to a range of legal questions and issues. This article explores several of these questions by considering three examples in different policy areas that have recently occurred in the Netherlands.