@Malcolm ... not just Italy - that's a well-tried technique, as anyone who has written specs for tender documents will attest.
Personally, I always preferred to write specs as generic as possible, in order to "open up the field" (to credible offers) as widely as was practicable. But there were a fair number of cases where clients had set their hearts on a particular manufacturer or vendor for some "unknown" reason, and therefore wanted the spec edited to suit. "He Who Pays the Piper", and all that.
Not that it makes much difference I should imagine, but don't tenders above a certain value have to go out across the whole of the EU?
