Administrative law

La contratación pública se rige por publicidad y concurrencia: public procurement is governed by openness and competition. That is where la publicidad catches an English reader out, because the word looks like two of ours and is neither. It is advertising, certainly — la agencia de publicidad is the advertising agency. And it is publicity in the sense of attention. But in a statute it is the principle of openness: la publicidad de las actuaciones means the proceedings are held in public, and la publicidad activa is the duty to publish without being asked. So a lawyer writing about publicidad is not talking about advertisements at all — and the giveaway is that nothing is being sold.