Who really built this — and what went wrong?
Procurement Archaeology reconstructs the hidden supply chains, dependencies, and cost overruns behind public projects by mining tenders, contract amendments, court filings, corporate registries, and technical standards.
Featured dossiers
Latest contracts
| Contract | Buyer | Supplier | Value | Procedure | Bids |
|---|
Search contracts, suppliers, buyers
| Contract | Buyer | Supplier | Value | Procedure | Bids |
|---|
Supply-chain graph
Project map
Source archive
Methodology
Every dossier on Procurement Archaeology follows a strict, reproducible process. This page documents exactly how we work so that any claim can be independently verified.
1. Source hierarchy
- Primary: Official tender portals — TED (EU), SAM.gov and USAspending (US), Contracts Finder and Find a Tender (UK).
- Secondary: Court records (EUR-Lex, PACER), customs data (UN Comtrade), corporate registries (OpenCorporates, GLEIF).
- Tertiary: Local news, NGO reports, FOI responses.
2. Search strings
We use structured search across CPV codes (45000000, 72000000, 30000000, 34000000), NAICS codes (236, 237, 238, 541512, 334511), company identifiers (VAT, LEI, registration number), and terms like "single bid", "negotiated procedure", "framework agreement", "SPV", and "joint venture".
3. Verification
Every claim requires at least three independent sources. Each fact carries a confidence label:
- Confirmed: Primary source + corroboration.
- Likely: Strong secondary sources.
- Disputed: Conflicting sources.
- Unverified: Single source.
4. Right to reply
Before publishing any negative finding, we contact the company and offer a right of reply. Their response is published alongside the dossier.
5. Permanent archive
Every source document is stored with a SHA-256 hash, OCR text, and retrieval timestamp. Nothing is edited after publication.
Open methodology: This entire process is public. If you spot an error, email bhattiabdulrehman430@gmail.com.
Admin dashboard
Latest ingestion runs
| Source | Status | Records | Duration | Timestamp |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EU TED — Tenders Electronic Daily | SUCCESS | 42 | 18s | 2 min ago |
| US SAM.gov | SUCCESS | 27 | 12s | 14 min ago |
| UK Contracts Finder | SUCCESS | 18 | 9s | 1 hr ago |
| OpenCorporates | RUNNING | 13 | — | now |
| GLEIF LEI | SUCCESS | 50 | 4s | 3 hr ago |
Journal
About Procurement Archaeology
Procurement Archaeology is an open-source investigative platform that reconstructs the hidden supply chains, dependencies, and cost overruns behind public projects. We mine tenders, contract amendments, court filings, corporate registries, and technical standards to build a permanent, verifiable record of how public money is spent.
What we do
- Index public contracts from TED, SAM.gov, Contracts Finder, and national portals across the EU, UK, and US.
- Resolve suppliers through corporate registries, LEI records, and beneficial ownership data.
- Track cost overruns by comparing original awards against final contract values and amendments.
- Publish deep dossiers with full source archives, SHA-256 hashes, and confidence labels.
Why it matters
Public procurement accounts for roughly 14% of EU GDP. Yet the data is fragmented, poorly structured, and difficult to cross-reference. We believe that making this data accessible and interlinked is essential for accountability journalism, academic research, and informed public debate.
Open by default
All our methodology is public. All source documents are archived with cryptographic hashes. The codebase is MIT-licensed. The content is CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. We welcome corrections, tips, and collaboration.
Contact: bhattiabdulrehman430@gmail.com